Overview - ancient to modern

ELSFIELD

A brief history.

Although there are substantial Roman remains in the vicinity of Elsfield, the nearest being a smelting furnace at Drun Hill, just outside the parish, a temple complex at Woodeaton, a road passing to the east of Oxford and crossing Otmoor, via Beckley, there appear to be no Roman remains in the village itself or if there are, they have not been found.

The name Elsfield is very likely to be Anglo-Saxon, of a standard form : a person’s name: Elle followed by “field”. The village is called Esefelde in Domesday . The land was granted to Robert D’Oyley, but was actually in the hands of Turstin, a Norman. Elsfield was assessed for taxation at five hides. There was arable land for eight ploughs and in the demesne, the land kept for himself by Turstin, there were five ploughs. There was a wood three furlongs long by three wide and 29 listed inhabitants: five slaves, eleven villeins[1], seven bordars and six others. As women and children were not counted the probable population of the village was about 100. At the time of the conquest Elsfield was worth £4 a year which had risen to £5 at the time of Domesday.

By 1279 customary tenants paid money rent or worked the lord’s will from St John Baptist’s Day (June 24) to Michaelmas (September29th). Cottars paid a rent or worked according to the terms of their tenure. All of them had to give one quarter and five bushels of nuts at Michaelmas to the lord of the manor. The demesne, like the holdings of the villeins, had its arable land not in consolidated blocks but scattered in strips over open fields. Some of the arable land was on the high ground while others were under the hill. Strips were mainly reputed to be half acres. In the late 12^th century Clark concludes that Elsfield had a two field system, North Field and South Field. However in 1369 because of the transactions involving re-allotting of land, records suggest there were three fields. Clark thinks that the enclosures took place gradually over many centuries and concludes that by 1682 and 1691 all the land must have been enclosed (1927:30).

In 1327 Gilbert de Elsfield obtained a royal licence to “impark” his wood at Elsfield. (VCH.5:21) though there is no written record to show that he actually did this.

In 1690 (Clark, 1927:14) Sir George Pudsey, then lord of the manor, died and left debts which resulted in his son selling Elsfield to the North family in 1691. In 1703 a map of the parish, now in the keeping of the Bodleian library, was drawn up showing a list of tenants and the rents due to their new landlord. The North family did not live in Elsfield but had a house here which members of the family occasionally lived in. What is left of that house forms the southern end of the present manor house.

The map shows that Great Sandfield at the top of the hill on the right as you walk through the village from the Oxford end is mostly not enclosed though there are some small enclosures behind the houses. 28 or 29 occupiers of fields or houses are mentioned besides the squire and there are thee widows among them. There seem to be seventeen houses, but it is difficult to be precise because of the condition of the manuscript. The purchase price was £25000 and the annual value was estimated at £1200

The Manor House is not delineated as such on the 1703 map, but several dwellings on the site of where the Manor now is are enclosed in a rectangle outlined by a zigzag line separating that piece of land from the rest of the village. The main building on this map is what until 1999 was called Home Farm ( now Dove House) and is called “The Homestead”. It is surrounded by an orchard and has a field called “Cherry Piece” at the rear, presumably an extension of the orchard.

The oldest part of the Manor House, dating to the 17^th century, is a steep gable on the southern end. A lower and longer part next to this was apparently built by Rev. Francis Wise He had been tutor to Lord Guilford who bestowed the manor and the living on him in 1728. Rev Wise was an antiquarian, described by Boswell , who accompanied Dr Johnson on several visits in 1754, as the “Radclivian librarian”. Rev. Wise installed various ornamental ponds and groves, some of which survive, and built what is now called “Gardener’s Cottage” in the style of a medieval chantry.

Between 1862 and 1877 Mr Herbert Parsons, who at that time leased the Manor from the Norths , bought Forest Farm, which was outside the parish and when the agricultural depression was in full force in 1886 Mr Parsons bought the whole estate from the Norths. It must have been he who greatly enlarged the Manor House, more than doubling its size. His study window was next to the road and he is reputed to have watched in the mirror which hung above his desk, to see who in the village had gone down to Marston to the pub. The farm labourers responded by removing their boots so they could not be heard as they passed the Manor on their way home. It was Mr Parsons who installed a reservoir behind Home Farm to serve the various pumps in the village. In the 1930s people were still having to carry water from the pumps and it was not until 1946 that water was piped into the houses.

The estate remained in the Parsons family until 1919 when it was again sold to Christ Church, except for the Manor House and gardens and Pond Close, which were bought by Mr John Buchan, later Lord Tweedsmuir. (Clark 1927: 16). There is a blue plaque on the wall commemorating his ownership, and his ashes are buried in the churchyard.

In 1953 the Manor House was again sold to Mrs Lane ( Miriam Rothschild) who in her will gave two cottages adjoining the Manor to two of her children: Rosie’s Cottage to her daughter Rosie, and Gardener’s Cottage, Rev Wise’s medieval chantry, to her son.

The rest of the land remained in the hands of Christ Church who modernised many of the cottages in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, with dwellings which had originally been built for two or more families being made to house single families. In 1999 the College began to sell off individual houses though they still retain ownership of the surrounding land, two of the farmhouses and several of the properties which are still rented.

The houses sold in the last ten years have nearly all been extended, some of them being almost twice the size they were originally. The outbuildings of the Manor House – what were the barn and stabling, have been converted into three dwellings and the house itself is now divided into three flats. Forest Farm has become a Montessori school and the latest conversion is a large barn which belonged to Hill Farm but has now become a house in its own right.

[1]Villeins rented small houses with or without land from the lord. They were expected to work on the lord’s land. In the social pecking order they were above slaves but below freemen. (Wikipedia)