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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

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. History The Toponymy, place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest kno ...

, 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 downla ...

district, in the county of

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

, 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, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

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 is an old dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bones, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human oc ...

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. Of the large number of different types, the best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, ...

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 metalloid ...

Roman coin Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, 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, ...

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 centu ...

Magnentius Magnus Magnentius ( 303 – 10 August 353) was a Roman general and usurper against Constantius II. Of Germanic descent, Magnentius served with distinction in Gaul, where the army chose him as a replacement for the unpopular emperor Constans. Ac ...

(AD 350–353), fragments of

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

, and clusters of

hobnail In footwear, a hobnail is a short nail with a thick head used to increase the durability of boot Sole (shoe), soles or provide traction. History Hobnailed boots (in Scotland "tackety boots") are boots with hobnails (nails inserted into the ...

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 dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

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

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. 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 State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

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

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

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 ...

of Saint

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. 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