Crawley is a village and
civil parish beside the
River Windrush
The River Windrush is a tributary of the River Thames in central England. It rises near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire and flows south east for via Burford and Witney to meet the Thames at Newbridge in Oxfordshire.
The river gives its name to t ...
about north of
Witney,
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
. The parish extends from the Windrush in the south almost to village of
Leafield in the northwest. The
2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 155.
Archaeology
There is a pair of
Bronze Age bowl barrows just south of Blindwell Wood, about north of the village. They may date from 2400 to 1500 BC. They are a
scheduled monument. The course of
Akeman Street, a major
Roman road
Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...
, passes through the parish about north of the village. In 1964 a 13th-century
medieval iron arrowhead was found in the Windrush at Crawley.
History
Uphill Farmhouse was built in the 17th century. Crawley's
chapel of
Saint Peter was built in 1837 as a
chapel of ease
A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently.
Often a chapel of ea ...
for the
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...
at
Hailey, Oxfordshire
Hailey is a village and civil parish about north of Witney, Oxfordshire. The village comprises three neighbourhoods: Middletown on the main road between Witney and Charlbury, Poffley End on the minor road to Ramsden and Delly End on Whiting's ...
. It has ceased to be used for worship and has been converted into a private house. Crawley village is above a sharp bend on the Windrush. The present road bridge across the river is probably late 18th-century. Crawley Mill on the Windrush was part of the Witney area's former blanket-making industry. It has a
mill stream and was originally water-powered but was later converted to steam power. It is now an industrial estate.
Amenities
Crawley has two
public houses: the 17th-century Lamb Inn
The Lamb Inn @ Crawley
/ref> and the Crawley Inn.
References
Sources & further reading
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External links
Crawley Village
Civil parishes in Oxfordshire
West Oxfordshire District
Villages in Oxfordshire
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