Mixbury 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 ...
in
Oxfordshire, about southeast of
Brackley
Brackley is a market town and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, bordering Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, from Oxford and from Northampton. Historically a market town based on the wool and lace trade, it was built on the inter ...
in
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by
two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
.
Manor
The
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
is derived from the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
''mixen-burgh'',
meaning "fortification near dung-heap".
''"Burgh"'' refers to
Beaumont Castle, which was built about 1100. It no longer stands, but its earthworks remain at the north end of the village.
The
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...
records that in 1086
Roger d'Ivry
Roger d'Ivry or d'Ivri or Rog'ive or Roger Perceval (died 1079) was an 11th-century nobleman from Ivry-la-Bataille in Normandy. He was the younger son of Robert de Breval and his wife, Albreda, daughter of Rodolph, Lord of Ivry.
He took part in ...
held a
manor of 17
hides at ''Missberie''.
[ The manor was part of the ]Honour
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
of St. Valery by 1213, when Robert de St. Valery gave Mixbury's mesne lord
A mesne lord () was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. Owing to '' Quia Emptores'', the concept of a mesne lordship technically still exists today: the partitioni ...
ship to the Augustinian Osney Abbey
Osney Abbey or Oseney Abbey, later Osney Cathedral, was a house of Augustinian canons at Osney in Oxfordshire. The site is south of the modern Botley Road, down Mill Street by Osney Cemetery, next to the railway line just south of Oxford s ...
.[ The abbey retained Mixbury until it was suppressed in the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.][
]
Parish church
The Church of England parish church of All Saints dates from the 12th century. The south doorway is 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 ...
, dating from about 1170. Early in the 14th century[ all the windows were replaced with ]Decorated Gothic
English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...
ones. A south aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...
of three bays and a west tower were added at the same time.[ The Perpendicular Gothic clerestory was added later. 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 in 1843 and the remainder of the church was restored after 1848.[ All Saints' 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 ...
.
/ref> The treble bell was cast in 1577 by John Appowell[ of Buckingham][ and the second in 1627 by Bartholomew Atton][ of Buckingham.][ Ringing now is very restricted for safety reasons.][ The church clock is of unknown date, but appears to be late 17th century.
The ]ecclesiastical parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...
is now a member of the Shelswell Benefice.[
]
Economic and social history
An open field system
The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acr ...
of farming prevailed in the parish until 1730. Evidence suggests that it may have begun with two fields, but by the latter part of the 17th century it had been reorganised as a more efficient three-field system. The fields were Middle Field, Sandfield and West Field.[ Mixbury's ]inclosure act
The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1 ...
was passed in 1729 and the inclosure award was made the next year. This is by far the earliest inclosure act for an Oxfordshire parish: the next was not passed until 1758. The area enclosed under the act was about ; land enclosed before 1729 by agreement without the need for an act had been about .
The main road between Buckingham and Banbury
Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census.
Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshir ...
passes through the parish south of the village. It was made into a turnpike
Turnpike often refers to:
* A type of gate, another word for a turnstile
* In the United States, a toll road
Turnpike may also refer to:
Roads United Kingdom
* A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powers ...
by an Act of Parliament
Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
in 1744.[
The rector had the village school built in 1838.][ In 1928 it was reorganised as a junior school and older pupils were transferred to the school at ]Fringford
Fringford is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about northeast of Bicester. The parish is bounded to the east by the Roman road that linked Alchester Roman Town with Roman Towcester, to the south by a brook that joins the River Bur ...
.[ It was reorganised as an infants' school in 1948 and closed in 1955.][
The original village consisted of thatch-roofed rubblestone cottages clustered between All Saints and the stream. In 1874 they were demolished under an order of the ]Court of Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...
and replaced with two rows of brick-faced semi-detached
A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single family duplex dwelling house that shares one common wall with the next house. The name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced hou ...
estate cottages laid out as a model village along the road leading south from the church.
Railways
In 1847–50 the Buckinghamshire Railway
The Buckinghamshire Railway was a railway company in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, England that constructed railway lines connecting Bletchley, Banbury and Oxford. Part of the route is still in use today as the Oxford to Bicester Line.
His ...
built its branch line
A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line.
Industrial spur
An industr ...
to through the northern part of the parish along the Great Ouse
The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the W ...
Valley. station was built on the line about northeast of the village.
The Great Central Main Line from to London Marylebone
Marylebone station ( ) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern te ...
was built through the eastern part of the parish in the 1890s and opened in 1899. The nearest station was Finmere for Buckingham, about southeast of Mixbury.[ Buckingham already had a railway station on the Buckinghamshire Railway, and was almost from the Great Central station, so the name was later shortened to the more appropriate "Finmere".
In 1961 British Railways closed Fulwell and Westbury station to passenger traffic. In 1963 '' The Reshaping of British Railways'' report recommended that BR close both the branch line to Banbury and the Great Central Main Line. It closed Finmere station and the Banbury branch line immediately, and the Great Central Main Line in 1966.
]
References
Sources
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External links
{{authority control
Civil parishes in Oxfordshire
Villages in Oxfordshire