Mixbury is a village and civil parish 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 2.5 miles (4 km) southeast 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 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

The 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...

 is derived from the Old English mixen-burgh, meaning "fortification near dung-heap". "Burgh" refers to Beaumont Castle

Beaumont Castle

-History:Beaumont Castle was a possible motte and bailey or ringwork castle built in the village of Mixbury, Oxfordshire, England. The castle was probably built by Roger d'Ivry following the Norman invasion of England. The castle was probably called Beaumont because it occupied a natural promontory...

, which was built about 1100. It no longer stands, but its earthworks remain at the north end of the village.

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 in 1086 Roger d'Ivry

Roger d'Ivry

Roger d'Ivry or d'Ivri was an 11th century nobleman from Ivry-la-Bataille in Normandy. He took part in William of Normandy's conquest of England in 1066 and founded the Abbey of Notre-Dame-d'Ivry in 1071...

 held a 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 17 hides

Hide (unit)

The hide was originally an amount of land sufficient to support a household, but later in Anglo-Saxon England became a unit used in assessing land for liability to "geld", or land tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide...

 at Missberie. The manor was 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 St. Valery

Saint-Valery-en-Caux

Saint-Valery-en-Caux is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A small fishing port and light industrial town situated in the Pays de Caux, some west of Dieppe at the junction of the D53, D20, D79 and the D925 roads...

 by 1213, when Robert de St. Valery gave Mixbury's mesne lord

Mesne lord

A mesne lord was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. A mesne lord did not hold land directly of the king, that is to say he was not a tenant-in-chief. His subinfeudated estate was called a "mesne estate"...

ship to the Augustinian

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

 Osney Abbey

Osney Abbey

Osney Abbey or Oseney Abbey, later Osney Cathedral, was a house of Augustinian canons at Osney in Oxfordshire. The site is south of the modern Botley Road, down Mill Street by Osney Cemetery, next to the railway line just south of Oxford station. It was founded as a priory in 1129, becoming an...

. The abbey retained Mixbury until it was suppressed in the Dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 in 1539.

Parish church

The Church of England parish church

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 the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...

 of All Saints

All Saints

All Saints' Day , often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated on 1 November by parts of Western Christianity, and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Eastern Christianity, in honour of all the saints, known and unknown...

 dates from the 12th century. The south doorway is Norman

Norman architecture

About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...

, dating from about 1170. Early in the 14th century all the windows were replaced with Decorated Gothic ones. A south aisle of three bays

Bay (architecture)

A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

 and a west tower were added at the same time. The Perpendicular Gothic clerestorey was added later. The chancel

Chancel

In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 was restored in 1843 and the remainder of the church was restored after 1848.

The bell tower

Bell tower

A 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 three bells. The treble bell was cast in 1577 by John Appowell of Buckingham, the tenor in 1609 by Robert Atton of Buckingham and the second in 1627 by Bartholomew Atton of Buckingham. Ringing now is very restricted for safety reasons.

The ecclesiastical parish is now a member of the Shelswell

Shelswell

Shelswell is a hamlet in Oxfordshire about south of Brackley in neighbouring Northamptonshire.-Manor:Shelswell's toponym 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...

 Benefice.

Economic and social history

The main road between Buckingham

Buckingham

Buckingham is a town situated in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. The town has a population of 11,572 ,...

 and Banbury

Banbury

Banbury is a market town and civil parish on the River Cherwell in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire. It is northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...

 passes through the parish south of the village. It was made into a turnpike

Toll road

A toll road is a privately or publicly built road for which a driver pays a toll for use. Structures for which tolls are charged include toll bridges and toll tunnels. Non-toll roads are financed using other sources of revenue, most typically fuel tax or general tax funds...

 by an Act of Parliament

Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom

An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is a type of legislation called primary legislation. These Acts are passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster, or by the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh....

 in 1744.

The rector had the village school built in 1838. In 1928 it was reorganised as a junior school and older pupils were transferred to the school at Fringford

Fringford

Fringford is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about northeast of Bicester. The parish is bounded to the east by the Roman road that linked Alchester Roman Town with Roman Towcester, to the south by a brook that joins the River Bure, to the north mostly by a brook that is a tributary of...

. It was reorganised as an infants' school in 1948 and closed in 1955.

The original village consisted of thatch-roofed rubblestone

Rubble masonry

Rubble masonry is rough, unhewn building stone set in mortar, but not laid in regular courses. It may appear as the outer surface of a wall or may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or cut stone....

 cottages clustered between All Saints and the stream. In 1874 they were demolished under an order of the Court of Chancery

Court of Chancery

The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid the slow pace of change and possible harshness of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including trusts, land law, the administration of the estates of...

 and replaced with two rows of brick-faced semi-detached

Semi-detached

Semi-detached housing consists of pairs of houses built side by side as units sharing a party wall and usually in such a way that each house's layout is a mirror image of its twin...

 estate cottages laid out as a model village

Model village

A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, in most cases built from the late eighteenth century onwards by industrialists to house their workers...

 along the road leading south from the church.

In 1847-50 the Buckinghamshire Railway

Buckinghamshire Railway

The Buckinghamshire Railway was a railway company in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, England that constructed railway lines connecting Bletchley, Banbury and Oxford...

 built its branch line

Banbury to Verney Junction Branch Line

The Banbury to Verney Junction Branch Line was a railway branch line constructed by the Buckinghamshire Railway which connected the Oxfordshire market town of Banbury with the Buckinghamshire town of Bletchley via the historic county town of Buckingham and the Northamptonshire town of Brackley, a...

 to through the northern part of the parish along the Great Ouse

River Great Ouse

The Great Ouse is a river in the east of England. At long, it is the fourth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The river has been important for navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows. Its course has been modified several times, with the first recorded being in...

 Valley. station was built on the line about 1 miles (1.6 km) northeast of the village. 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 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...

 about 2 miles (3.2 km) miles southeast of the village. Buckingham already had a railway station on the Buckinghamshire Railway and is 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. BR also closed Fulwell and Westbury station and the Buckinghamshire Railway line to Banbury in the 1960s.