Islip is a village and civil parish on the
River RayThe River Ray is a river in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, England. It rises at Quainton Hill and flows west through a flat countryside for around 25 km or 15 miles. It passes the village of Ambrosden and then flows through Otmoor, where its course has been diverted. It joins the Cherwell near...
, just above its confluence with the
River CherwellThe River Cherwell is a river which flows through the Midlands of England. It is a major tributary of the River Thames.The general course of the River Cherwell is north to south and the 'straight-line' distance from its source to the Thames is about...
in
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East England region, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is about east of
KidlingtonKidlington is a large village and civil parish between the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal, north of Oxford and southwest of Bicester.-History:...
and about north of
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
.
The remains of a Romano-British
villaA Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
have been found in the village.
The
Church of England parish churchA parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
of
Saint NicholasSaint Nicholas is the common name for Nicholas of Myra, a saint and Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker...
has existed since at least 1065, but the earliest part of the present building is the
arcadeAn arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers, or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides....
between the
naveIn Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
and north aisle, which was built in about 1200 in the Transitional style between Early English and Decorated Gothic.
Islip is a village and civil parish on the
River RayThe River Ray is a river in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, England. It rises at Quainton Hill and flows west through a flat countryside for around 25 km or 15 miles. It passes the village of Ambrosden and then flows through Otmoor, where its course has been diverted. It joins the Cherwell near...
, just above its confluence with the
River CherwellThe River Cherwell is a river which flows through the Midlands of England. It is a major tributary of the River Thames.The general course of the River Cherwell is north to south and the 'straight-line' distance from its source to the Thames is about...
in
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East England region, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is about east of
KidlingtonKidlington is a large village and civil parish between the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal, north of Oxford and southwest of Bicester.-History:...
and about north of
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
.
History
The remains of a Romano-British
villaA Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
have been found in the village.
The
Church of England parish churchA parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
of
Saint NicholasSaint Nicholas is the common name for Nicholas of Myra, a saint and Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker...
has existed since at least 1065, but the earliest part of the present building is the
arcadeAn arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers, or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides....
between the
naveIn Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
and north aisle, which was built in about 1200 in the Transitional style between Early English and Decorated Gothic. The chancel was rebuilt in 1780. In 1861 the
Gothic Revival architectThe Gothic Revival is an architectural movement which began in the 1740s in England. Its popularity grew rapidly in the early nineteenth century, when increasingly serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval forms in contrast to the classical styles prevalent at the...
E.G. BrutonEdward George Bruton was a British Gothic Revival architect who practiced in Oxford. He was made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1855 and a Fellow of the RIBA in 1861.-Work:...
remodelled the chancel and restored the rest of the church. The
bell towerA bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...
has a
pealChange ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes". It differs from many other forms of campanology in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody....
of eight bells. The
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
parish is now part of the Benefice of the Ray Valley.
King Edward the ConfessorEdward the confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last English kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066 Edward the confessor ...
was born in Islip in 1004. A
chapelA chapel is a building used as a place for fellowship and of worship for Christians. It may be attached to an institution such as a large church, a college, a hospital, a palace, a prison or a cemetery, or may be an entirely free-standing building, sometimes with its own grounds...
associated with him used to exist north of the church. In April 1645 during the
English Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
the chapel was damaged during a rout, and in the 1780s it was demolished. In 2006 the
Channel FourChannel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
archaeology programme
Time TeamTime Team is a British television series shown on Channel 4 since 1994. Presented by actor Tony Robinson, a team of specialists carry out an archaeological dig in three days, with Robinson explaining the process in layman’s terms....
visited Islip and tried unsuccessfully to find the remains of the chapel.
In 1850 the
Buckinghamshire RailwayThe Buckinghamshire Railway was a railway in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, England that provided services between Bletchley and Banbury, and between Bletchley and Oxford...
completed its line from through Islip parish to , and opened
Islip railway stationIslip railway station serves the village of Islip, Oxfordshire, England. Islip is located just to the north-east of Oxford — services run south to Oxford 9 km away and north-east to Bicester....
to serve the village.
British RailBritish Railways , which later traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the British railway system from the nationalisation of the 'Big Four' British railway companies in 1948 until privatisation in stages from 1994 to 1997...
ways withdrew passenger services from the line in 1967 and later Islip station was demolished. Oxfordshire County Council and
Network SouthEastNetwork SouthEast was one of three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE principally operated commuter trains in the London area and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the network reached as far west as Exeter...
reinstated passenger trains between Oxford and in 1987 and opened a new Islip station in 1989.
In the 19th century the geologist
William BucklandThe Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur...
lived at Islip. Early in the 1920s
Robert GravesGraves considered himself a poet first and foremost. His poems, together with his translations and innovative interpretations of the Greek Myths, his memoir of the First World war, Good-bye to All That, and his historical study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of...
and
Nancy NicholsonNancy Nicholson was a British painter and fabric designer.She was sister to Ben Nicholson and daughter of the artist Sir William Nicholson....
lived here, and Graves describes their life in the village in
Goodbye to All ThatGood-bye to All That is the autobiography of Robert Graves. First published in 1929, the work is a landmark anti-war memoir of life in the trenches during World War I. The title expresses Graves' disillusionment in the existence of traditional, stable values in European and English society...
.
Amenities
Islip has two
public houseA public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises in countries and regions of British influence. Although the terms often have different connotations, there is little definitive difference between pubs, bars,...
s: The Red Lion and
The Swan. It has also a community shop and a village hall.