Shelswell
Encyclopedia
Shelswell is a hamlet
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

 in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

 about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Brackley
Brackley
Brackley is a town in south Northamptonshire, England. It is about from Oxford and miles form Northampton. Historically a market town based on the wool and lace trade, it was built on the intersecting trade routes between London, Birmingham and the English Midlands and between Cambridge and Oxford...

 in neighbouring Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

.

Manor

Shelswell's toponym
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

 comes from Old English and suggest's that the settlement may originally have been the well belonging to Scield, a Saxon settler. The spring that gave rise to this well is no longer traceable. The toponym was "Scaldeswelle" in 1180 and "Saldeywell" in 1219 before evolving into the present form.

Before the Norman Conquest of England
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...

 the manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...

 of Shelswell belonged to a Saxon called Edwin, but the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 records that by 1086 Shelswell had been granted to Geoffrey de Montbray
Geoffrey de Montbray
Geoffrey de Montbray , bishop of Coutances , a right-hand man of William the Conqueror, was a type of the great feudal prelate, warrior and administrator at need....

, Bishop of Coutances. In 1093 the Bishop left Shelswell to his nephew Robert de Mowbray
Robert de Mowbray
Robert de Mowbray , a Norman, was Earl of Northumbria from 1086, until 1095, when he was deposed for rebelling against William Rufus, King of England. He was the son of Roger de Mowbray and nephew of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances...

, Earl of Northumbria
Earl of Northumbria
Earl of Northumbria was a title in the Anglo-Danish, late Anglo-Saxon, and early Anglo-Norman period in England. The earldom of Northumbria was the successor of the ealdormanry of Bamburgh, itself the successor of an independent Bernicia. Under the Norse kingdom of York, there were earls of...

, but in 1095 the Earl was imprisoned and forefeited his estates for rebelling against William Rufus. By the 12th century Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester
Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester
Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was called "Rufus" and occasionally "de Caen", he is also known as Robert "the Consul"...

, an illegitimate son of Henry I
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

, was Shelswell's feudal
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 overlord. Shelswell remained part of the honour
Honour (land)
In medieval England, an honour could consist of a great lordship, comprising dozens or hundreds of manors. Holders of honours often attempted to preserve the integrity of an honour over time, administering its properties as a unit, maintaining inheritances together, etc.The typical honour had...

 of Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

 during the 13th century and apparently as late as 1560. Sir Anthony Cope, 1st Baronet
Sir Anthony Cope, 1st Baronet
-Life:He was a grandson of Anthony Cope the author. He was member of Parliament for Banbury in seven parliaments , and then represented Oxfordshire from 1606 until 1614...

 of Hanwell, Oxfordshire
Hanwell, Oxfordshire
Hanwell is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, northwest of Banbury.-Early history:Remains of a substantial Roman villa have been found just west of the B4100 main road....

 bought Shelswell in 1595 and it remained with the family of the Cope Baronets until after 1675.

Shelswell had a mediaeval manor house that still stood in 1530. Moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...

s near Home Farm (OS grid reference SP611308) may mark its site. A new manor house (OS grid ref. SP603306) southwest of the former village was built either early in the 18th century according to record or in 1699 according to a date-stone found in 1875. In the 18th century that house was enlarged and plantations made to improve its parkland. In 1875 the house was almost completely demolished and replaced with Shelswell Park's present Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

 country house
English country house
The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...

 designed by the architect William Wilkinson
William Wilkinson (architect)
William Wilkinson was a British Gothic Revival architect who practised in Oxford, England.-Family:Wilkinson's father was a builder in Witney in Oxfordshire. William's elder brother George Wilkinson was also an architect, as were William's nephews C.C. Rolfe and H.W. Moore .-Career:Wilkinson...

. The house has a Tuscan
Tuscan order
Among canon of classical orders of classical architecture, the Tuscan order's place is due to the influence of the Italian Sebastiano Serlio, who meticulously described the five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth book of Regole generalii di...

 porte-cochère
Porte-cochere
A porte-cochère is the architectural term for a porch- or portico-like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which a horse and carriage can pass in order for the occupants to alight under cover, protected from the weather.The porte-cochère was a feature of many late 18th...

 and retains some rooms of the 18th century house. In 1956 the 1875 house was unoccupied and falling into disrepair.

Parish church

Shelswell had a parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 before the end of the 11th century, and its dedication to the Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

n Saint Ebbe reflects the Earl of Northumbria's feudal
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 overlordship of the manor from 1093 until 1095. From 1573 the Benefice was held with that of neighbouring Newton Purcell
Newton Purcell
Newton Purcell is a village in Newton Purcell with Shelswell civil parish in Oxfordshire, southeast of Brackley in neighbouring Northamptonshire.-Early history:...

, and Shelswell was usually referred to as a chapel of the latter. St. Ebbe's was still standing in 1618 but became increasingly dilapidated in the 18th century and was demolished in either 1796 or 1810. Two 17th century or late 16th century figures from the church have been preserved and are in Shelswell Park northeast of the house.

Late in the 20th century a Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 comprising Newton Purcell and nine other local parishes was established and named after Shelswell.

Economic and social history

Shelswell was a poor parish and during the Middle Ages its population tended to decline. Its lands wereenclosed
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...

 in different stages. In 1497 the husband of the lady of the manor evicted people, demolished two houses and enclosed 60 acres (24.3 ha) of land for arable farming. By 1528 another landowner had made further evictions and enclosures and in 1533 Brasenose College, Oxford
Brasenose College, Oxford
Brasenose College, originally Brazen Nose College , is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. As of 2006, it has an estimated financial endowment of £98m...

 bought a 90 acres (36.4 ha) farm in the parish. By 1601 Shelswell's enclosures were complete. In 1634 the parsonage was still standing but unoccupied. No building from the former village survives today.

In 1899 the Great Central Railway
Great Central Railway
The Great Central Railway was a railway company in England which came into being when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension . On 1 January 1923, it was grouped into the London and North Eastern...

 built its main line to London
Great Central Main Line
The Great Central Main Line , also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway , is a former railway line which opened in 1899 linking Sheffield with Marylebone Station in London via Nottingham and Leicester.The GCML was the last main line railway built in...

 through the eastern part of the then Shelswell parish and built Finmere for Buckingham station
Finmere railway station
Finmere was a railway station on the former Great Central Main Line which ran between and London Marylebone. It was opened in 1899 and served the nearby village of Finmere...

 where the line crosses the main road about 0.5 miles (804.7 m) northeast of Newton Purcell. Buckingham was almost 5 miles (8 km) from the Great Central station, so the name was subsequently shortened to the more appropriate "Finmere". British Rail
British Rail
British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

ways closed Finmere station in 1963, and closed the section of the Great Central line through the station and parish in 1966.

Shelswell was a separate civil parish until 1932 when it was merged with Newton Purcell
Newton Purcell
Newton Purcell is a village in Newton Purcell with Shelswell civil parish in Oxfordshire, southeast of Brackley in neighbouring Northamptonshire.-Early history:...

 to form the present civil parish of Newton Purcell with Shelswell
Newton Purcell with Shelswell
Newton Purcell with Shelswell is a civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It was formed in 1932 by merger of the parishes of Newton Purcell and Shelswell ....

.

In 1939 the novelist Flora Thompson
Flora Thompson
Flora Jane Thompson was an English novelist and poet famous for her semi-autobiographical trilogy about the English countryside, Lark Rise to Candleford.-Early life and family:...

 used Sheldon Park as the basis of "Skeldon Park" in Lark Rise, the first book of her Lark Rise to Candleford
Lark Rise to Candleford
Lark Rise to Candleford is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. They were written by Flora Thompson and first published together in 1945...

trilogy.
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