Swalcliffe
| Swalcliffe | |
| Oxfordshire | |
|---|---|
 St Peter and St Paul, Swalcliffe | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP378378 |
| Location: | 52°2’16"N, 1°26’59"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 237 (2001) |
| Post town: | Banbury |
| Postcode: | OX15 |
| Dialling code: | 01295 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cherwell |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Banbury |
| Website: | Swalcliffe Village |
Swalcliffe is a village in Oxfordshire, found in the north of the county about five miles west of Banbury. It is a small place of farms and cottages. Swalcliffe has one public house, The Stag's Head. It has one church and a village hall. There is also a boarding school, Swalcliffe Park School, for boys with special educational needs.[1]
North of the village is the site of an Iron Age hill fort, on Madmarston Hill. Close by is the site of a Roman villa at Swalcliffe Lea, and course of a former Roman road (now a bridleway). One authority asserts that there was a Roman or Romano-British village here.[2]
The village's name comes from the Old English, swealwe and clif, meaning "swallow cliff", referring to the hill slopes around which swallows swoop in the summertime.
Parish church
The parish church of Saints Peter and Paul is Anglo-Saxon in origin[3] but was rebuilt in the 12th and 14th centuries. The bell tower was built in the 13th century and made higher in the 15th century.[4] It has a ring of six bells cast by Matthew I Bagley and Henry II Bagley of Chacombe,[5] Northamptonshire in 1685.[4][6] Richard Sanders of Bromsgrove[5] recast one of them in 1720.[4][6]
Swalcliffe Tithe Barn
Swalcliffe tithe barn was built for New College, Oxford in 1401–07. It has an almost completely intact mediæval timber half-cruck roof and is considered the finest mediæval tithe barn in Oxfordshire[4] and one of the best examples in Britain.
The barn is open to visitors free of charge on Sundays from Easter to October. It houses part of the Oxfordshire Museum's collection of traditional agricultural and trade vehicles and an exhibition of 2,500 years of Swalcliffe history.
The building has similarities to the tithe barns at Adderbury and Upper Heyford, which also were built for New College around the beginning of the 15th century.[7]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Swalcliffe) |
- Article on Tithe Barns in Oxfordshire - including history of construction of Swalcliffe Barn
- Pictures of Swalcliffe and the area on Geograph.co.uk
- Swalcliffe Barn - Oxfordshire Museums
References
- ↑ Swalcliffe Park School
- ↑ Aston & Bond 1976, p. 45.
- ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 795.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Crossley 1972, pp. 225–260.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Dovemaster (25 June 2010). "Bell Founders". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Central Council for Church Bell Ringers. http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/founders.php. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Davies, Peter (15 December 2006). "Swalcliffe SS Peter & Paul". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Central Council for Church Bell Ringers. http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?searchString=Swalcliffe&Submit=+Go+&DoveID=SWALCLIFFE. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
- ↑ Lobel 1959, pp. 196–205.
Books
- Aston, Michael; Bond, James (1976). The Landscape of Towns. Archaeology in the Field Series. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. p. 45. ISBN 0-460-04194-0.
- Crossley, Alan (ed.); Colvin, Christina; Cooper, Janet; Cooper, N.H.; Harvey, P.D.A.; Hollings, Marjory; Hook, Judith; Jessup, Mary et al. (1972). A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 10. Victoria County History. pp. 225–260.
- A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 6 (Victoria County History)
- Mills, A.D.; Room, A. (2003). A Dictionary of British Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. not cited. ISBN 0-19-852758-6.
- Munby, Julian; Steane, J.M. (1995). "Swalcliffe: A New College Barn in the Fifteenth Century". Oxoniensia (Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society) LX: 333–378. SSN 0308-5562.
- Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 860–862. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
