Aston Upthorpe is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

about southeast of

Didcot Didcot ( ) is a railway town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the Historic counties of England, historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, eas ...

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a planned move to Didcot, the district's largest town. The a ...

. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. The motion picture National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) - Stonehenge Scene was filmed a mile to the south of the village on the ancient downland. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 179.

Prehistory

Half of the high

Blewburton Hill Blewburton Hill is the site of an Iron Age hillfort located in Oxfordshire, in the southeast of England. It was a univallate hillfort (with a single rampart). The area is mostly farmland with some small areas of wooded copse to the south and th ...

is in the parish. The hill is the site of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

that may have been occupied from the 4th century BC to the 1st century BC.

Parish church

The Church of England parish church of All Saints may date from the second half of the 11th century. However, the only surviving

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

features are one small window in the north wall of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and the blocked-up remains of a south doorway. The nave roof may be 14th century and its west wall and Perpendicular Gothic window may be 15th century. The wooden north porch is of uncertain date, possibly the first half of the 17th century. In 1859–60 under the direction of the Gothic Revival architect P.C. Hardwick, the nave was restored and the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

was restored. The

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

is also wooden and has two bells, and may have been added by Hardwick. All Saints is now part of the Benefice of the Churn.

References

Sources

* *

External links

The Astons.Net
* Civil parishes in Oxfordshire Villages in Oxfordshire {{Oxfordshire-geo-stub