Souldern StMaryTheVirgin Chancel Interior

Souldern is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire about northwest of Bicester and a similar distance southeast of Banbury. The parish is bounded to the west by the River Cherwell and to the east by field boundaries. Its northern boundary is Ockley Brook, a tributary of the Cherwell that forms the county boundary with Northamptonshire. The parish's southern boundaries are the main road between Bicester and Adderbury and the minor road between Souldern and Somerton. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 370.

Souldern's toponym is derived from the Old English ''Sulh-þorn'' meaning "Thorn-bush in a gully".

Manor

The Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention Souldern. Early in the 12th century Jordan de Say, a Norman nobleman who owned the manor of Kirtlington, seems also to have owned Souldern. He married his daughter Eustache or Eustachia to Hugh FitzOsbern (died 1140), by whom the manor became part of the honour of Richard's Castle in Herefordshire. Hugh and Eustache's sons took their mother's surname de Say, and overlordship of the Honour of Richard's Castle, including Souldern, remained with the family until about 1196, when their grandson Hugh de Say died leaving Richard's Castle to his daughter Margaret. She married three times and the castle eventually passed to the heirs of her second husband Robert Mortimer. The Mortimers kept the castle until Hugh Mortimer died in 1304, leaving it to his daughter Joan. Joan married twice and with her second husband Richard Talbot had a son, John, who was recorded as overlord of Souldern in 1346.

By 1196 Hugh de Say, grandson of Hugh FitzOsbern, had transferred lordship of the manor of Souldern to his brother-in-law Thomas de Arderne. By 1279 the Ardernes were mesne lords, collecting rent from the de Lewknor family. By 1307 the de Lewknors had conveyed Souldern to the Abberbury family of Donnington, Berkshire. Sir Richard Abberbury, knight of the shire for Oxfordshire in 1373 and 1387, granted lands at Souldern to both Donnington Hospital and a house of Crutched Friars at Donnington. Sir Richard's nephew, another Richard Abberbury, inherited the remainder. The younger Richard seized the Crutched Friars' land at Souldern and granted it to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk in 1448. The remainder of Richard's land at Souldern passed to his nephew Sir Richard Arches (d.1417), MP for Buckinghamshire in 1402, of Eythrope, Cranwell (both in the parish of Waddesdon) and Little Kimble, Buckinghamshire. Souldern was inherited by his daughter Joan Arches and her husband Sir John Dynham. When their son, John Dynham, 1st Baron Dynham, died in 1501, Souldern manor was divided into four parts which remained in separate hands until the 1590s.

One part passed to Thomas Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall, whose mother was a Dynham, and remained in the Arundell family until Sir John Arundell (died 1590) sold it. By that year John Stutsbury, Robert Weedon and his son John Weedon had bought two parts of the manor. Robert married Stutsbury's daughter and by the time he died in 1598 Robert had acquired a third part. In 1604 John Weedon acquired the fourth and final part of Souldern by quitclaim, thus reuniting the manor after just over a century of division.

The Stutsbury and Weedon families were recusants (see below) and during the English Civil War the Parliamentarians confiscated the Weedons' estates. After the English Restoration the Crown restored the estates, which then stayed in the family until John Weedon died in 1710. John left his manor to Samuel Cox, the infant grandson of Richard Kilby of Souldern. The Cox family lived in Farningham, Kent and were largely absentee landlords. In the 1860s Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Snead Cox of Broxwood, Herefordshire was listed as lord of the manor of Souldern, but thereafter the lordship was allowed to lapse.

Churches

Church of England

The oldest parts of the Church of England parish church of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary are 12th century. The church was enlarged and altered at various times between about 1200 and 1500. The medieval chancel fell into disrepair in the 18th century and was demolished after 1775. In 1896–97 the Gothic Revival architect Ninian Comper rebuilt the chancel and in 1906 G.F. Bodley dismantled and rebuilt the Norman tower and tower arch.

From 1161 until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 the Benedictine Eynsham Abbey owned the advowson of the parish. After 1623 John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln granted it to St John's College, Cambridge, which still owned the advowson in 1955.

The tower has a ring of six bells, including three cast by Henry I Bagley of Chacombe, Northamptonshire in the 1630s.

The ecclesiastical parish is a member of the Cherwell Valley Benefice along with the parishes of Ardley, Fritwell, Lower Heyford, Somerton and Upper Heyford.

The parish had a rectory that was built before 1638 and had fishponds well-stocked with carp by 1723. The poet William Wordsworth stayed there in 1820. Afterwards he wrote the sonnet '' A Parsonage in Oxfordshire'', and in another sonnet called the house "this humble and beautiful parsonage". In 1890 this historic house was demolished and replaced with a new one designed by the Gothic Revival architect E.G. Bruton.

Roman Catholic

John Stutsbury was recorded as a recusant in Souldern in 1577 and 1592. John Weedon and his wife were fined for recusancy in 1603 and the Weedons were said to have mortgaged land to a house of Benedictine nuns in Dunkirk

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