Enslow is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

on the banks of both the

River Cherwell A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it ru ...

and the

Oxford Canal The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in southern central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to th ...

Bletchingdon Bletchingdon (also known as Bletchington) is a village and civil parish north of Kidlington and southwest of Bicester in Oxfordshire, England. Bletchingdon parish includes the hamlet of Enslow just over west of the village. The 2011 Cens ...

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 ...

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 ...

. The medieval main road linking London with

Chipping Norton Chipping Norton is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cotswolds in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Banbury and north-west of Oxford. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 201 ...

and

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engl ...

crosses the Cherwell at Enslow. There was a bridge here by the time that John Leland toured England in 1538–43.

John Ogilby John Ogilby, Ogelby, or Oglivie (17 November 16004 September 1676) was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, though neither overtly acknowl ...

's ''Britannia Atlas'' of 1675 records a timber bridge here that he called ''"Emley Bridg"''. In 1718 the road was made into a turnpike and at some stage the timber bridge was replaced by one with pointed stone arches. In 1814 the stone bridge was widened on its downstream side. to almost double its former width. In contrast with the older upstream side of the bridge, the 1814 arches are semicircular. The road is now the A4095. Enslow Hill, now the site of a quarry, is thought to have been identical with the ''Spelleburge'' (

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

for "Speech Hill") recorded as a traditional meeting-place for Ploughley

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

in Anglo-Saxon times. The hill was the site of the unsuccessful Oxfordshire Rising of 1596 over enclosures of common land. The quarry is now the site of a

Cable & Wireless Communications Cable & Wireless Communications Ltd operating as C&W Communications is a telecommunications company which has operations in the Caribbean and Central America. It is owned by Liberty Latin America and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, US. ...

ground station. Enslow had a

water mill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production ...

that was recorded in 1086 in 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

, and again in 1340 and in the 17th and 18th centuries. The arrival of the

led to the building of a wharf and associated buildings in 1788. Early in the 19th century the Rock of Gibraltar

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

was built to serve the trade on and around the wharf. From 1845 the

Oxford and Rugby Railway The Oxford and Rugby Railway was promoted by the Great Western Railway as a means of connecting to the West Midlands and the north of England, by joining existing railways at Rugby. It was authorised in 1845, but the GWR soon decided to make it ...

ran through the hamlet and in 1850

Bletchington railway station Bletchington railway station is a disused station in Oxfordshire at Enslow, England, a hamlet west of the village of Bletchingdon. The station had a number of names during its period of operation: 'Woodstock', 'Woodstock Road', 'Kirtlington' a ...

was built.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

ways closed the station in 1964 but the line remains open as part of the Cherwell Valley Line.

References

Sources

* * * {{Cherwell Hamlets in Oxfordshire Cherwell District