Curbridge 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 ...

immediately southwest of

Witney Witney is a market town on the River Windrush in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is west of Oxford. The place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is as ...

, in the

West Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire is a local government district in northwest Oxfordshire, England, including towns such as Woodstock, Burford, Chipping Norton, Charlbury, Carterton and Witney, where the council is based. Area The area is mainly rural downland ...

district, in the county of

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, primaril ...

, England. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 529. Since 2012 it has been part of the Curbridge and Lew joint parish council area, sharing a parish council with the adjacent civil parish of Lew.

Romano-British settlement

When the Witney Bypass was being built in the 1970s, the remains of a

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

settlement were found a short distance northeast of Manor Farm. Foundations were found of rectangular timber-framed buildings, some with limestone

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

foundations. A cemetery was found, containing 18 burials. There may have been more, but if so they are now beneath the bypass. Most of the bodies lay with their heads pointing east or north. Three of the adults had been beheaded, and were laid with their heads between their legs. This was a burial practice in the late Roman and early

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

eras. It is not known whether beheading was the cause of death or was done posthumously. In a later phase of settlement, a

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and eco ...

covered the cemetery. Artefacts found included a whetstone made from local limestone, a

copper alloy Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. The best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, and brass, using zinc instead. Both of t ...

brooch, a copper finger ring, a

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

Roman coin Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denom ...

from the reign of the

Roman usurper Roman usurpers were individuals or groups of individuals who obtained or tried to obtain power by force and without legitimate legal authority. Usurpation was endemic during the Roman imperial era, especially from the crisis of the third cent ...

Magnentius Magnus Magnentius ( 303 – 11 August 353) was a Roman general and usurper against Constantius II from 350 to 353. Of Germanic descent, Magnentius served with distinction in Gaul under the Western emperor Constans. On 18 January 350 Magnentius ...

(AD 350–353), fragments of Romano-British pottery, and clusters of

hobnail In footwear, a hobnail is a short nail with a thick head used to increase the durability of boot soles. Uses Hobnailed boots (in Scotland "tackety boots") are boots with hobnails (nails inserted into the soles of the boots), usually installe ...

s showing where leather footwear had rotted away in the ground.

History

Caswell Farm, southwest of the village, is a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

ed farmstead that includes remnants of a 15th-century house. It is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

. In the mid-1970s the Witney Bypass was built to allow the A40 trunk road to pass south of Witney. It was built through Curbridge parish only north of the village. The bypass was made the new civil parish boundary, and that part of the parish north of it was transferred to Witney.

Parish church

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

chapel was built in Curbridge in 1838 and the Gothic Revival architect CC Rolfe added an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

in 1874. In 1906 the chapel was demolished and replaced with the present

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 ...

of Saint

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

. Its parish is part of the

Benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

of Witney, which also includes Hailey.

References

Sources and further reading

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External links

Curbridge Village Website
Villages in Oxfordshire Civil parishes in Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire District {{Oxfordshire-geo-stub