ELSFIELD
The cottages and farm-houses of Elsfield form a
single gently descending street, with the manorhouse half-way down and the church, the vicarage,
and the thatched school-house at the bottom. The
street runs at a height of about three hundred feet
above sea-level, along a spur of the hills which circle
round from Beckley and Stowood to Forest Hill and
Shotover. Close to the village on the west and south
the escarpment drops sharply about a hundred feet,
so that the manor-house has a clear view westwards
across to the Cotswolds, and the vicarage looks down
on Oxford, about three miles away to the south.
The vicarage is early Victorian; there are a few new
houses among the others; and some slate-roofed
19th-century cottages at the top of the village
contrast with the thatched stone buildings lower
down; but in the main the village looks much as it
did in the 17th century. The manor-house, which
rises sheer from the road, is mainly Victorian and
later in date, with some earlier portions. It has been
much enlarged, and the original building may have
stood on the other side of the road, where the
square stone pigeon-house remains. Perhaps the
greatest change in the appearance of the village
came when the street was given a metalled surface:
in 1819, and probably much later, it was grass. (fn. 1)
Elsfield has kept its beauty because it is still purely
agricultural, and the landowners have resisted the
temptation to allow new houses to be built there to
relieve the congestion of Oxford and its suburbs.
The parish has an area of 1,296 acres (of which
1 acre was in Headington until 1929), (fn. 2) very nearly
equal to that of Marston, its neighbour to the southwest, of which the history and economy have been
strikingly different. At Elsfield the hill-top consists
mostly of good sandy soil, with patches of infertile
stonebrash; the lower levels are Oxford Clay. At
the north-west corner a tongue of land about half
a mile wide runs down to the River Cherwell, to
include in the parish Sescut Farm, where there was
formerly the manorial water-mill, and the meadows
about it. The parish thus takes in the land which
could conveniently be cultivated from a settlement
in the dry, sheltered and central position occupied
by the village, together with this appendage for the
mill. The village street is on the way from Oxford
to Beckley, which was referred to from the 13th
century to the 17th as the 'Portway', the way to the
town, (fn. 3) but no road of any importance runs through
the parish except that the Oxford northern bypass road cuts off a minute part of the south-west
corner. The old coaching-road from London to
Worcester through Wheatley and Islip passes outside the parish within a few hundred yards of the
northern boundary. Except for a salient of one field
this part of the boundary runs fairly straight across
the plateau in front of Stowood, rising to a height
of 370 or 380 ft. ascending from the Cherwell on
one side and dropping down on the other to the
Bayswater Brook. It follows the brook to its mouth,
and the brook separates it first from Headington
and then from Marston. (fn. 4)
Elsfield never had any family of note other than
the occupants of the manor-house. Although the
14th-century Gilbert of Elsfield has a right to be
mentioned as a local worthy, there are only two
figures in this class who are sufficiently distinct to
require any notice here. The first was Francis Wise,
the curate, who was also Radcliffe librarian in
Oxford, and enjoyed a certain reputation in his lifetime as a philologist and antiquary. (fn. 5) He is best
remembered now for the pleasing story of Dr. Johnson's visit to him in 1754. It was not only the scholar
that attracted Johnson and other visitors to Elsfield;
they also delighted in the singular but, we are
assured, tasteful manner in which he had laid out
the grounds of his house. They are now the groves
and lawns on the hillside below the manor-house.
Wise made them from the rough, leasing the land
and apparently the house as it was then, from the
Norths. He managed to crowd into them not only
ponds and cascades, but scale-models of a triumphal
arch, a pyramid, a Druid temple, and the tower of
Babel. He built a stable in imitation of 'a Norman
religious structure', and his successor moved a cross
'from the rude chamber of quadrupeds' to a position
over the porch of the church. Francis Wise seems
indeed narrowly to have missed qualifying for inclusion among the 18th-century eccentrics. (fn. 6)
The other name is recent and famous in two
continents. John Buchan (fn. 7) settled in the manor-house
soon after the end of the First World War, and in
spite of his ceaseless and ubiquitous activity he was
never long away from his home on the hill. When,
as Governor-General of Canada, with the title of
Baron Tweedsmuir, he died in Ottawa in 1940, his
body was brought across the Atlantic in a battleship
to be buried in Elsfield churchyard, where his
epitaph runs:
Qui musas coluit patriae servivit amicis
Dilectum innumeris hic sua terra tenet.
Manor.
In 1086 ELSFIELD was part of the great
fee of Robert d'Oilly, of whom it was held by Turstin
son of Rolf, a Norman who had much property in
Buckinghamshire. (fn. 8) The overlordship followed the
descent of Waterperry, (fn. 9) passing from the d'Oilly
family in the 13th century to Hugh de Plescy
(d. 1292) (fn. 10) , who was overlord in 1279. (fn. 11) His son
Hugh witnessed a grant of land in Elsfield in about
1300, (fn. 12) and his son, another Hugh, held Elsfield at
his death in 1349. (fn. 13) After this the descent of the
overlordship is uncertain: in 1471 the manor was
held of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, but her right
might have been derived from the Stratford mesne
tenancy. (fn. 14) Turstin, the Domesday tenant, was
succeeded both in Buckinghamshire and here by
the Stratford family. (fn. 15) Probably by the late 12th
century and certainly by 1242 they had subinfeudated part of Elsfield but they apparently
retained a fifth of the manor in their own hands.
William de Stratford granted property in Elsfield
to St. Frideswide's in the late 12th century and his
son William in about 1220 gave the canons a fifth of
the manor, comprising all his lands there. (fn. 16) This
was confirmed by his son John, but not all the
Stratfords' rights in Elsfield were surrendered, for
a William de Stratford was mesne tenant in 1242,
1254, and 1279. (fn. 17) No Stratford holding was mentioned when Hugh de Plescy died in 1349, but in
1398 the manor was said to be held of the heirs of
William Stratford. (fn. 18)
Hugh son of William of Elsfield granted away
lands in Elsfield in the late 12th and early 13th
century. (fn. 19) John of Elsfield, probably his nephew, (fn. 20)
held ½ knight's fee in Elsfield of William of Stratford
in 1242. (fn. 21) In 1254 Elsfield was said to comprise
5 hides of which John of Elsfield held 4 and
St. Frideswide's 1. They both held of William de
Stratford and the St. Frideswide's portion was held
as 1/5 knight's fee although in 1242 it was held in
free alms. (fn. 22) In 1279 John of Elsfield, presumably a
different man, held four-fifths of the manor and had
granted a life-tenancy of it to Margery de Bolehuth
or Rillehitch. (fn. 23) In 1304 John of Elsfield settled the
manor on his son Gilbert, subject to a life-tenancy
for himself. (fn. 24) Gilbert was lord by 1316 (fn. 25) and settled
the manor on himself and his wife Joan in 1323. (fn. 26)
In 1327 he received a grant of free warren and
licence to impark his wood at Elsfield. (fn. 27) The manor
was held in 1350 by Joan of Elsfield, presumably
Gilbert's widow, (fn. 28) and in 1369 by Thomas of
Elsfield. Thomas made an exchange with the canons
of St. Frideswide's in that year by which he gave them
74 acres of arable, with wood, meadow, and pasture,
from his demesne, and they surrendered to him
their fifth of the manor and all its appurtenant
rights. (fn. 29) The manor thus became united in the
possession of the Elsfields. In 1471 it was said that
William of Elsfield, who died seised of the manor in
1398, was the son of Gilbert and Joan who held it in
1323, (fn. 30) so that he may have been a younger brother of
Thomas. William left two coheirs. The first was a
granddaughter, Joan, who was the daughter of his
daughter Anne and had become the wife of John
Hore. The other, also named Joan, was the surviving,
and presumably younger, daughter of William of
Elsfield. She was married to Thomas Loundres. (fn. 31)
Nothing more is heard of this Joan, and the future
of the manor belonged to John Hore's descendants.
He came from Childerley near Cambridge, where
the 15th-century chapel of his family's moated
manor-house may still be seen. His son Gilbert died
in 1453, leaving a son and heir, John, (fn. 32) who lived
until 1471, leaving only an infant daughter, Edith. (fn. 33)
Edith married twice. Her first husband was Thomas
Fulthorpe of Barnard Castle (co. Dur.), who was
alive in 1516; (fn. 34) the second, Rowland, son of Henry
Pudsey of Barford and Bolton in Yorkshire, the son
and heir of Sir John Pudsey, also came from the
north, but his family acquired property in Worcestershire, and the Elsfield branch of the Pudseys were
the descendants of William Pudsey of Langley
(Warws.). (fn. 35) The Elizabethan and Caroline heralds
do not indeed seem to have been very successful in
working out this genealogy; but in any case nothing
survives from the 16th-century Pudseys except a
string of names and dates. Robert, who died in 1558,
had two daughters besides his son and heir, George,
born in 1541. (fn. 36) His widow, Eleanor, whose maiden
name was Mountford, afterwards married Robert
Sylvester, who became trustee for the family properties in Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire. He and his wife had to defend two chancery
suits, one brought by George, when he came of age,
the other by a tenant. (fn. 37) In 1596 George Pudsey of
Elsfield was accused of offering to be the leader of
a conspiracy in Oxfordshire, which appears to have
been a poor men's attempt at protest against inclosures. The lord lieutenant was ordered to arrest
Pudsey, but there is no evidence to show whether
the charge against him was true. (fn. 38) George lived
until 1625 and had several children, of whom
Richard succeeded him. He was born in 1580,
married Mary Lowe, and died in 1638. His widow
married Henry Brett, and during her widowhood
endowed small charities for the poor of Elsfield and
Marston. Michael Pudsey, who died in 1645 at the
age of 84, was presumably a younger son of George. (fn. 39)
About this time the annals of the Pudseys become
more diversified. In 1655, when Oliver Cromwell
was Protector, the alien son-in-law of Michael
Pudsey successfully petitioned for free denization.
He was a jeweller, by name Christopher Riddell,
alias Roshe, born at Zwickau near Leipzig; he had
come from Germany as a Protestant refugee and
lived in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. (fn. 40) If
this suggests Puritan leanings in the family, they
had been left behind by 1672 when another George
Pudsey was head of the family. He was a stalwart
Tory, who became a freeman of the city of Oxford,
and three times unsuccessfully stood for Parliament
there. After his last failure, in 1681, he was knighted
when King Charles II came to the Oxford Parliament. He became Recorder of Oxford in 1683 and
a serjeant-at-law in 1685, and was eventually returned to the House of Commons under James II.
His legal career perhaps implies that his rents were
not sufficient to support a public man, and more
than once he raised money on mortgages. (fn. 41) Perhaps
he spent too much money; for that or some other
reason, soon after his death, which occurred in 1688,
his son, the Revd. Thomas Pudsey, sold Elsfield to
Francis, Lord Guilford, (fn. 42) and so ended a period
of at least 500 years in which the manor had passed
only by inheritance. The descent in the noble
family of North followed the title of Guilford. (fn. 43)
Herbert Parsons, who leased the manor from the
then Lord North from 1855, and bought it outright
in 1886, belonged to the private banking firm of
Parsons, Thomson & Co., of the Old Bank, Oxford.
He died in 1911 and was succeeded by his son of
the same name, who sold Elsfield in 1919. His
daughter, Miss Mary Jane Parsons, lived on at the
Home Farm House until she died in 1941. The
manor and lands were bought from Parsons by
Christ Church, which soon after sold the manorhouse with the adjoining lands to John Buchan.
His widow, Susan Lady Tweedsmuir, left it in 1953,
when it was bought by the Hon. Mrs. Lane. The
rest of the estate was still owned by Christ Church
in 1954.
Economic and Social History. (fn. 44)
The
known evidence regarding the settlement begins in
Anglo-Saxon times. (fn. 45) The name appears to be an
Old English name of a common type, meaning the
field of Elesa or Ella. (fn. 46) In 1086 Elsfield was assessed
at 5 hides. There was arable land for 8 ploughs,
3 being in demesne, 18 'acres' of meadow, and 24 of
pasture. Twenty-six inhabitants are enumerated:
2 serfs, 11 villeins, 7 bordars, and 6 'others'. At the
beginning of the Conqueror's reign Elsfield was
worth £4 a year, at the time of Domesday, £5. (fn. 47)
The rise in value is rather high for Oxfordshire, and
if we had to give a reason for this we might perhaps
attribute it to the clearing of woodlands.
Domesday mentions wood in Elsfield 3 furlongs
in length and 3 in breadth. Perhaps the modern
wood in the northern part of the parish is a remnant
of this; but there were other parts where clearing
went on in the Middle Ages. The cultivated land
immediately round the village must itself be an
early clearing. Marston, Headington, part of Wood
Eaton, and the high ground to the north of Elsfield
were in the Forest of Stowood, so that Elsfield was
almost surrounded by the forest but there is no
direct evidence that it was ever included in it. In
1279 the king's foresters, however, were liable to be
called upon to agree with the canons' bailiffs on the
estimation of the canons' share of wood cut in that
wood which still stands at the present day. (fn. 48) Like
the other adjacent villages Elsfield had common
rights in the forest, for some of which it made payments: in 1363, for instance, 12s. for pasturing
eight swine. The foresters, on their side, had rights
of pasture on the manor. (fn. 49) When Stowood was
disafforested in 1661 Elsfield was granted 20 acres
of land as compensation for the loss of its rights.
In practice this meant a share of the rent of the
Forest Farm, which lies just outside the parish on the
Wood Eaton side, and was added to the Elsfield
estate by the Parsons family in the 19th century.
The disafforestation came at the end of a long
process of encroachment and break-up, during
which woods were felled both in the forest and outside. Early in the 13th century a purlieu was made
between Wood Eaton and Elsfield. In this case it is
evident that there was also a rearrangement at least
of the rights of common of pasture over this strip
of ground which ran down from the Islip road to the
Cherwell, so that the landlords had farming reasons
for marking out the tract; but it seems also clear
that it was in some way taken out of the forest. (fn. 50)
Some fifty years later the field-names on the Stowood border included 'le breche'—the clearing—
and the 'hurnes' or corners of one or more 'breches'.
In various ways the proximity of the forest made a
difference to the life of the Elsfield villagers. There
was some poaching of deer; naturally we cannot
guess how much. (fn. 51) In the time of Charles I there
was timber-stealing in Stowood, and in the yard of
an Elsfield man who owned a team of horses one of
the king's broad-arrow trees was found 'with the
arrow-head upon it'. (fn. 52)
For nearly a hundred years from the time of
Domesday we know little or nothing of what went
on in Elsfield. By the 13th century there were
several free tenements there, (fn. 53) including the property which Studley Priory had received from
William de Stratford and Hugh of Elsfield, (fn. 54) and the
holdings of St. Frideswide's which included lands
acquired from various persons as well as a fifth of
the manor itself. (fn. 55) By 1279 part of these lands were
subinfeudated to free tenants. The demesne of fourfifths of the manor was reckoned as 4 carucates,
together with 10 acres of meadow and 36 acres of
wood. The customary tenants held 8 virgates and
there were also 24 cottars. They all did works or
paid rent at the will of the lord, and the cottars also
paid a fixed rent in kind. The three tenants at Sescut
were in a special position, not being liable for
labour-service except at harvest-time. Sescut was,
and for long after remained, more or less cut off from
the rest of Elsfield by marsh. Adjoining it to the
north towards Wood Eaton, was the meadow of
Roworth which had been unjustly fenced in, to the
detriment of all the inhabitants, to whom it used to
be common. (fn. 56)
In 1369, when St. Frideswide's received specified
lands instead of its fifth share of the manor, the
74 acres of arable which were given to the priory
lay in three approximately equal portions, possibly
indicating the existence of three open fields. The
lands in 'Lechesplace' were valued at 4d. an acre,
those in East Wood towards Marston marsh at 3d.
an acre, and those in 'le Breche' at 2d. or even less
because they always lay at pasture. The 7 acres
of meadow they received lay next to Wood Eaton
meadow—presumably on the river bank in the
north-east of the parish. The 43 acres of pasture
they received, and which they still held at the
Dissolution, were said to be swamped nearly the
whole year and the 36 acres of wood were wasted and
lay in common since it could not be inclosed. (fn. 57) From
this time we have little or no information about the
agricultural affairs of the place until the 16th
century. In 1516 a leaseholder of the manor converted 30 acres of arable—presumably already inclosed—to pasture, probably for sheep. (fn. 58) After the
dissolution of St. Frideswide's its lands were not all
kept together for the new foundation of Christ
Church. Amongst that which came into the market
was a close of 43 acres of pasture in the low-lying
part of Elsfield parish. This was bought by a group
of London speculators, who sold it with the rectories
of Headington and Marston and other items to
Sir John Brome. (fn. 59) By 1643 it had come into the
hands of a yeoman family named Bolt of Marston,
and they sold it in 1677 to George Pudsey, then lord
of the manor of Elsfield. (fn. 60) This seems to have been
the last purchase of a series by which the Pudseys,
who had held the manor since the 16th century,
secured all the land in Elsfield except for the glebe.
Earlier in the 17th century they had bought the
former Studley Priory estate from the Croke family,
who had acquired it at the Dissolution. (fn. 61) In 1629
and 1630 there were 8 customary tenants—possibly
the same number as in 1279, but two of them
held for 99-year terms. There were 10 tenants by
indenture, for what term is not stated, and 14 cottagers. (fn. 62) There were some considerable relics of the
open-field system in the time of Charles II; (fn. 63) but
in 1692, when Sir George Pudsey had died, and his
estate had been bought for Francis, Lord Guilford,
then a minor, it had disappeared altogether. (fn. 64) The
date is interesting because the reign of William III
saw many manors of the smaller gentry absorbed by
great landowners. Sir George Pudsey, whose career
has been noticed already, (fn. 65) may have spent more
than he could afford; he raised money several times
by mortgaging his land, and he may have used
some of this money for the capital outlay of inclosing. (fn. 66) Whether he was extravagant or not, the
times were unfavourable for his class, and his
family had to relinquish Elsfield almost as soon as
their hold on it was complete.
The Norths, the family of Lord Guilford, held it
among their great possessions for nearly 200 years.
Seated at Wroxton, beyond Banbury, they were
absentee landlords, and to them Elsfield, we may
suppose, signified mainly the quarterly rents which
it yielded. In the early 18th century it brought in
somewhere about £1,500 a year, or slightly more
than a pound an acre; but there were normally
substantial arrears of unpaid rent. The number of
tenants varied a little from year to year, but there
was one farm worth more than £100, others with
rents from £65 to £16 of which the number fell in
1715–24 from nine to seven. There were only three
or four smaller tenants, including one who paid
£1 6s. 3d. for the fishing-rights in the Cherwell. (fn. 67)
The village had become a community of less than
a dozen farmers, and the married labourers lived in
cottages, all except one of which were let with the
farms.
Towards the end of the 18th century Elsfield was
described as a village with a great appearance of
poverty. In 1792 the poor-rate was 1s. 9d.; in 1795,
2s. 3d., and in 1796, 4s. The cottages were mostly
rent-free and there was generally free wood. Work
could be obtained in the winter; in summer there
was harvesting. The women earned money by
spinning. (fn. 68) In 1801, the population was returned
as 175; but there is no reason to suppose that it
fluctuated more in the days of the Norths than it
must have done through the changes of numbers
in particular households. Numbers have remained
curiously constant throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries. In 1931 there were 12 fewer and in 1921
1 fewer than in 1801; the highest figure, in 1821 in
the day of the corn-laws and the old poor-law, was
only 188, and the lowest, in 1901, was as much as
150. It can scarcely have been less than 100 at the
time of Domesday, before the clearances of the
woodlands and the draining of marshes. The principal change in the later years of the Norths seems
to have been the continued throwing together of
farms, so that there came to be still fewer farmers,
each of them cultivating more land: in 1771 and in
1825 there were five (fn. 69) and by 1851 there were only
four of them. (fn. 70) But the number of hands required
for cultivation did not diminish. The village crafts
had perhaps grown in importance. The census of
1851 enumerated a mason, two sawyers, a cabinetmaker, a laundress, and a milliner, besides a shopkeeper and a fruit-dealer.
During these two centuries there were ups and
downs of prosperity, but there seem to have been
no major changes of economic structure except for
the poor-law and the increase in the size of the
farms. Between 1862 and 1877, mostly in 1876,
Herbert Parsons, who held the lease of the manor
from Lord North, rounded off the Elsfield estate by
buying out the various co-proprietors of the Forest
Farm which adjoined it. (fn. 71) In 1886, when the full
force of the agricultural depression had made itself
felt in Oxfordshire, and even landowners like the
Norths with their gross rent-roll of £12,000 a year,
were hard hit, Parsons bought the estate outright.
Since changing hands for the last time, when
Christ Church bought it in 1919, Elsfield has been
less disturbed by the revolution around it than
might have been thought possible. The Pilgrim
Trust and the Oxford Preservation Trust have
protected the famous view of Oxford. The estatemanagement has been deliberately conservative.
There are still 4 farms and except for 4 cottages put
up since 1947 there has been no building. There is
no inn, and there seems never to have been any.
Some of the inhabitants have found employment far
afield, but, except for mechanization, and for the
disappearance of one or two craftsmen, there has
been no change in the kinds of employment available. Good farming has warded off even the ill
effects of agricultural fluctuations, and it is proper
to mention here W. F. Watts, who rented Hill Farm
from 1919 to 1944 and was succeeded there by one
of his sons. Watts, who came from the Cotswolds,
was a man of the same stamp as Adams of Wadley
and Hobbs of Kelmscott, and was a well-known
exhibitor of Oxford Down sheep and of dairy cattle.
Church.
The church of Elsfield was in existence
by 1122, when it was granted by Henry I to St.
Frideswide's, (fn. 72) and perhaps earlier, since the canons
of St. Frideswide's claimed that the church of
Elsfield was given to them by King Ethelred in his
foundation charter of 1004. The canons held that it
was one of the chapels included with Headington
when the king granted the rights of a free minster
there; in later times, since it was exempt from the
jurisdiction of the archdeacon, it was part of the
peculiar of Headington. Ethelred's charter, however, does not mention Elsfield church, (fn. 73) and the
relevant part of the charter is suspect as a later
edition. (fn. 74) The church was referred to as a chapel
throughout the 12th century, but there is no other
evidence for its dependence on any other church at
that period. In the later part of the century, as
confirmation of Henry I's grant, Hugh of Elsfield
made a grant of the chapel to St. Frideswide's. (fn. 75)
The church remained appropriated to St. Frideswide's until the Dissolution, when it passed in turn
to Cardinal College and to Henry VIII's College. (fn. 76)
After being assigned to Cardinal Pole by Act of
Parliament it was granted by the Crown to Thomas
Reve and George Evelyn in 1560 (fn. 77) . By 1582 both
rectory and advowson had passed into the hands of
the lord of the manor, (fn. 78) where they have since
remained. (fn. 79)
Two-thirds of the tithes of the manorial demesne
were granted by Robert d'Oilly in the 11th century
to the church of St. George in Oxford castle and
passed with the church to Oseney Abbey. (fn. 80) In 1221
Oseney remitted to St. Frideswide's 2s. rent hitherto
paid in respect of tithes. (fn. 81) Oseney appears to have
continued to claim its two-thirds of the demesne
tithes, though they were not mentioned in 1535. (fn. 82)
A vicarage was ordained by the bishop between
1215 and 1235. The whole church was then valued
at 8 marks of which the vicar's share was to be 5
marks, and was to consist of altar-offerings, all the
small tithes, part of the tithes of corn and hay, an
acre of land, and the buildings where the chaplain
had been living. (fn. 83) In 1291 the church was worth
£4 13s. 4d. (fn. 84) In 1296, however, the vicar's living
had been diminished for some years owing to a
succession of bad harvests, and the prior and convent agreed to give him 3 quarters of corn a year.
This was to stop if the vicarage regained its former
value, (fn. 85) but it may have become permanent since
in 1535, when the rectory was valued at £6, the sum
of 66s. 8d. was deducted from this in augmentation
of the vicarage, which was itself worth £6 8s. (fn. 86)
Although there was a properly endowed vicarage,
it appears that by the 18th century the cure was
being served by stipendiary curates. Francis Wise
performed the services at Elsfield from 1726 to
1767: at his appointment by Francis, Lord Guilford
the living was referred to as a donative, and Wise
himself described it in 1759 as a stipendiary curacy;
he was paid £20 a year by Lord North, he was
Rector of Rotherfield Greys, and he lived in Oxford
and later at what is now Elsfield manor-house. (fn. 87)
Though there had been a parsonage house in 1669
there was no house for the 18th-century clergy. (fn. 88)
After Wise's death in 1767 the cure was served from
Oxford by Dr. Gilbert Parker (d. 1795), Rector of
Oddington. (fn. 89) There may have been non-resident
vicars, but there is no evidence about them and
the stipend of the officiating clergy was paid by the
North family. In 1804 a vicar was presented by the
Earl of Guilford, (fn. 90) but in 1808 the parish was being
served by a curate who lived at Noke. This curate's
income was made up of £16 in lieu of tithes and £20
by way of gift, both paid by the Earl of Guilford,
and £4 from Queen Anne's Bounty. (fn. 91) In 1806 the
rights of the vicarage were said to have shrunk since
1669. (fn. 92) In 1808 and 1825 there was still no parsonage
house, (fn. 93) but one had been built by 1851. (fn. 94) Richard
Gordon, who became vicar in 1832, resided in the
parish. (fn. 95) In 1954 the net value of the vicarage was
£480. (fn. 96)
There is little to say about the church life of the
village. In 1584 the churchwardens were ordered by
the archdeacon in his court to provide within a
month a convenient seat for the minister near the
screen and the door on the north side of the church. (fn. 97)
In 1738 Francis Wise held two services on Sundays,
catechized in Lent, and held three communionservices a year, for about 20 communicants. He
reported that one farmer's wife was a papist, but that
her children were being brought up in the Church
of England. (fn. 98) Dr. Gilbert Parker gave the sacrament
at first three times and later four times a year, the
numbers rising from about 20 to 30 people 'or
nearly' and then falling again. He complained of
three newcomers, brothers who rented a farm, who
were rigid Anabaptists but were seen in church now
and then. Worse were two masons who absented
themselves incorrigibly. The churchwardens did
not care to prosecute them. 'Their motive seems to
be chiefly stupid obstinacy and perverseness. There
are too many more, in this little hamlet, like them.' (fn. 99)
In 1808 the curate returned the number of communicants as averaging 100 over the past three
years. (fn. 100)
A change came in the church life of the village
when Richard Gordon became vicar in 1832 and
lived in Elsfield. He held the living in plurality with
Marston from 1849, but he devoted most of his
attention to Elsfield, (fn. 101) where he preached twice
on Sundays, held six communion-services a year,
catechized on Sundays and sometimes on weekdays,
and visited the village school. In the 1850's he
returned the number of communicants as about 25,
and the number attending church as about 80: he
thought this number bore a fair proportion to the
population. (fn. 102)
The church of ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY consists of nave and chancel, with a south
porch and a bell-cote on the west gable. The earliest
surviving work, dating from about 1170–80, is the
chancel arch, while the font, which is of a plain
tub-shape on a square base may date from before
1200. The church was rebuilt in the 13th century,
and the new building was consecrated in 1273
by Reynold, Bishop of Cloyne, (fn. 103) and dedicated to
St. Thomas of Canterbury: the old dedication is
unknown. From this rebuilding there remain the
trefoiled piscina and, no doubt, considerable portions of the walls. The lancet windows on the north
and south sides of the chancel, and the low side
window on the south are more or less faithful
restorations of what was there before. At some date
there was an aisle on the north side of the nave;
two large arches and one small one which formed its
arcade are built into the north wall of the nave, and
traces of them were visible until 1849. In the 14th
and 15th centuries alterations were made to some
of the windows. The east window of the chancel is
in the style of the 14th century, and the lower part of
the window in the south-west corner of the chancel
was blocked up at an uncertain date, and one end
of the sill perhaps used as a bookrest. Both the
screen and the pulpit with its hour-glass stand are
Jacobean. The bell-cote is modern, and it is owing
to the fierce restorations of 1849 and 1859 that the
general appearance of the church is strikingly Early
English. (fn. 104) The stained-glass memorial to the Revd.
Richard Gordon in the east window was inserted
in 1878, and the mosaic reredos also dates from
the late 19th century. The monument of Michael
Pudsey (d. 1645) incorporates the tombstone of John
of Cheltenham, Abbot of Eynsham (1317–30), the
old inscription having been left unchanged. (fn. 105)
A medieval bell inscribed Sancta Maria Ora pro
Nobis was in use until the 19th century, when it was
replaced by one made by W. Taylor of Oxford
(1846). The other bell now in use is dated 1654 and
inscribed 'Michael Derbie made me'. (fn. 106) The vestments listed in 1553 included '3 vestyments, 2 of
tawny sylke and the other of blew myxt with whytt
and lynett', and 2 copes of dark tawny silk. There
were also a cross and two candlesticks of latten,
a chalice of silver and a pyx of tin. The vestments
and most of the other items listed seem not to have
survived the confiscations following this inquiry. (fn. 107)
There is now no old plate: the present silver chalice,
paten, and flagon were given in 1859, while a tankard
flagon and alms dish are both inscribed 'Ben. Steel,
Wm. Butler Church W 1768'. (fn. 108)
The surviving parish registers begin in 1686, and
there are volumes of churchwardens' accounts from
1697.
Nonconformity.
Except for the individuals
mentioned above and for others in more recent times
who have been connected with Roman Catholic or
Protestant Nonconformist bodies in Oxford, amongst
whom have been some of the most notable residents, there is no record of nonconformity in
Elsfield.
School.
In 1818 there was no school in the
parish, (fn. 109) but some of the children went to Stowood,
where they were educated at the expense of Mrs.
Oglander, who at that time lived at Elsfield Manor.
By 1833 a school for 26 children was founded, 18 of
whom were supported by private charity. (fn. 110) Accommodation has remained unaltered. By 1854 the elder
children of the village were attending Marston
school, (fn. 111) and throughout the second half of the
19th century the average attendance at Elsfield
school was about 30. In 1953 there were 20 pupils.
The elder children went to Senior or Grammar
schools at Gosford Hill or Oxford. (fn. 112)
Charities.
The only ancient local charity is that
founded by the will of Mary Brett, whose monument
is in the church, in 1650. Part of the rent from the
charity cottage at Marston (q.v.) is distributed to
the poor of Elsfield. The trust deed, said to be a copy
of the original dated 1650, ordered that 30s. should
be paid annually at Easter to the poor of Elsfield.
In 1796 an entry in the parish register stated that
great abuses had crept in, owing to the fact that the
rent had not been paid and the charity money not
distributed. The cottage was rebuilt in 1797 and
again in 1819, part of the cost being defrayed from
the charity money. During this time £4 to £5
was raised by public subscription and distributed
annually. In 1824 a rent of £9 15s. was collected, of
which £9 2s. was to be distributed to the poor. (fn. 113) In
1939 the charity was worth £10 a year. (fn. 114)
The Calcutt fund worth £5 a year was distributed
in 1939 between a school-treat fund and a coal
club. (fn. 115)