Site and remains of the abbey
The abbey site
covered a wide area on the south side of Eynsham village: land between Station Road on the
west and the Wharf stream on the east, the
church and High Street on the north, and the
Chil brook on the south seems to have been kept
in hand by the abbey for much of the Middle
Ages, and was later known as the Parks. (fn. 14) The
walled precinct was presumably much smaller
and the chief monastic buildings evidently stood
in an area south of the original parish churchyard known in 1650 as Abbey Court; to the west
stood the home farmstead and tithe barn, on the
site of Abbey Farm. (fn. 15)
At the Dissolution the abbey and grounds
were sold to Sir George Darcy and were then
retained by successive lords of the manor until
the mid 17th century. (fn. 16) The western part of the
site was usually let: the farmstead and adjacent
close (c. 1 ½ a.) formed part of the demesne farm
known as the Farm and was sold with it in 1655,
while the abbey barn and the adjacent 4 a.
(known in 1650 as the Farm Court) were let with
the great tithes until sold in 1658. Both portions
were united in the ownership of the dukes of
Marlborough from the early 18th century and
sold as part of Abbey Farm in 1920. (fn. 17) The
eastern part of the site, comprising in 1650
Abbey Court (c. 3 ½ a.) and Upper, Middle, and
Lower Parks (c. 43 ½ a.), (fn. 18) was sold from the
manor in the later 17th century and by 1700 was
mostly in the hands of John Bartholomew. (fn. 19)
The bulk of the Bartholomew family's property
passed before 1762 to Edward Ryves and so to
the Holloway family, (fn. 20) whose trustees at inclosure in 1802 held 27 a. of the Parks, including
the whole central area. (fn. 21) Outlying portions of
the former abbey grounds, c. 10 a. towards the
Wharf stream in the east and c. 11 ½ a. along the
Chil brook, were held in the 18th century by the
Arnatt and Stevens families respectively. (fn. 22) The
Holloway portion passed to E. V. Holloway,
who sold it in 1824 to J. V. Harrison. (fn. 23) Before
1802 the Parks immediately south of the then
churchyard were redivided by a north-south
fence, creating closes called Upper Park (4 ½ a.)
to the west and Lower Park (11 a.) to the east. (fn. 24)
Some time in the early 19th century Lower Park
was turned into a nursery, leased by Joseph
Day, who bought it in 1858; (fn. 25) Upper Park
descended separately, (fn. 26) and in 1863 Jonathan
Sheldon sold part of it to extend the churchyard. (fn. 27) In 1930 the west end of the nursery was
taken into the churchyard, (fn. 28) and later the remainder of Upper Park became the site of the
Roman Catholic church.
What appeared to be part of the burial ground
of the Anglo-Saxon minster was discovered at
the north-west corner of the nursery field. (fn. 29) The
parish church seems to have been built on a site
taken from the abbey precinct after a market
place had been established, (fn. 30) and thereafter the
main approach to the precinct was by Abbey
Street. In 1217 the abbot was licensed to divert a
street that passed inconviently between his curia
and barton, crossing the Chil brook towards
Stanton Harcourt. (fn. 31) The condemned road was
clearly an extension southward of Abbey Street.
The diversion was to the west, and seems to
have involved building a new bridge over the
Chil (now Chilmore Bridge) and laying out a
new street on the line of the later Station Road. (fn. 32)
The new street was to rejoin the old at the gate
of the cemetery of the 'great church', passing
between the abbey barton and the tenement of
John the porter; the barton evidently stood
south of the present Abbey Farm, (fn. 33) and the
upper section of the new street is probably
represented by the east-west driveway through
the farm grounds, linking Station Road to the
southern end of Abbey Street.
By 1290 the abbot was seeking to close
another street in that area, which linked the
abbey with the almonry; the abbot undertook to
provide a suitable alternative street outside his
precinct. (fn. 34) The site of the almonry, which in the
16th century comprised a derelict mansion and
great barn, (fn. 35) is uncertain, but if the almonry was
the 'hospital' mentioned c. 1217 it stood near the
west end of the drive through Abbey Farm. (fn. 36) If
so it seems likely that in 1290 the abbot closed
that drive and opened the northern end of
Station Road as an alternative route, thus
bringing within the precinct any farm buildings
north of the drive, perhaps the new grange
known to have been built in the early 13th
century. (fn. 37)
Next to the abbey c. 1360 lay a large, well
stocked garden, containing recently built fish
ponds, and to the west a large curia with a
grange, cattle sheds, and other farm buildings. (fn. 38)
The garden seems to have been enlarged on the
east in the 1280s when Robert Belgrave surrendered a house and land on the south side of the
ferry road. (fn. 39) There are vestiges of fish ponds
beside the Chil brook in both east and west
portions of the abbey grounds, and signs that the
brook was diverted to the south when the ponds
were made. (fn. 40) In the early 18th century the
complexity of the derelict site inspired an exaggerated local story that there had once been 52
ponds, 'according to the number of weeks in the
year'. (fn. 41)
In the late 16th century and early 17th the
Stanleys resided in part of the abbey. (fn. 42) In 1647
there was still a memory of 'a world of painted
glass' and 'curious buildings' on the site, with
'excellent carved wainscot, and wainscot-ceilings gilded: a curious chapel'. (fn. 43) In 1657 the
ruins included two high towers at the west end
of the church and part of the north wall; the
remains, together with an 'entrance or lodge',
were sold for building stone soon afterwards. (fn. 44)
Sales of materials, presumably from the abbey,
included loads of stone, brick, and timber, and a
table from the 'great hall'; a Charlbury carpenter paid £14 for six bays of stables. (fn. 45)
In 1710 John Bartholomew owned a building
in the Abbey Court called 'the little tower or
study', which may have been the recently built
tenement on that site mentioned in 1714. (fn. 46) Certainly Thomas Hearne in 1706 had seen no
abbey remains except an outer gate on the west
side. (fn. 47) The gate he saw was not the former main
entrance (allegedly destroyed in the 17th century), but another which stood a furlong west of
the abbey barn, presumably on the boundary of
the western precinct (Station Road), perhaps
near the end of the driveway into Abbey Farm:
Hearne's crude sketch shows a pinnacled tunnel
gateway of later medieval character, partially
blocked and set in post-medieval walling. (fn. 48) Almost certainly it was that gateway which was
removed before 1783 by the duke of Marlborough for 'some business at Blenheim'. (fn. 49) It
may have been intended to form part of the plan
to gothicize Blenheim Park in the 1760s. (fn. 50)
The abbey's main entrance has not been precisely located although in 1217 it stood near the
southern end of Abbey Street. (fn. 51) A small freehold cottage there, on the west side immediately
south of the present gateway of Abbey Farm,
was held separately from the rest of the Abbey
Farm site; the tenants of the farm required a
special right of way round the east side of the
cottage in order to reach the abbey barn. (fn. 52) When
the cottage fell down c. 1850 it was seen to
incorporate the respond of a medieval archway: (fn. 53) it possibly marked the western side of a
gateway which straddled the southern end of
Abbey Street. The cottage's separate ownership
suggests that it was part of Abbey Court itself
rather than of the farmstead.
A large barn on the site of the medieval abbey
barn is of the 19th century. In 1802 the duke of
Marlborough paid for the removal of the 'abbey
stables', presumably part of the Abbey Farm
buildings. (fn. 54) The foundations of a possible gateway were unearthed in 1825 on the southern side
of the road to the ferry, near the bridge over
Wharf stream, and there were 'in all directions'
in the meadow south of the churchyard remains
of old buildings, thought to be a former castle. (fn. 55)
The last standing remnant of the abbey, a doorway, was reputedly removed in 1843. (fn. 56) In 1851 a
large number of 14th-century inlaid tiles were
dug up in the nursery garden, 15 yd. south of
the churchyard, and further east a well and
cistern, also surrounded by medieval tiles; cartloads of tiles were sold as building rubble. (fn. 57) In
1901 seven skeletons were recovered from an
unrecorded site in the nursery field, (fn. 58) and in
modern times grave-digging in the extended
churchyard revealed massive foundations, floor
tiles, and stone and lead coffins. (fn. 59) The main
abbey buildings were restricted largely to the
churchyards of the parish and Roman Catholic
churches, (fn. 60) although buildings extended c.
10 m. east of the parish churchyard. Other
structures, probably outbuildings, lay further
east in the nursery field. Along the south side of
the field was what appeared to be the boundary
ditch of the precinct, dividing it from the
fishponds. (fn. 61)
Architectural fragments incorporated in village buildings (fn. 62) confirm that much of the abbey
was of 12th-century date. Two carved shields,
one on the market house, the other set on its side
on no. 6 Abbey Street, bear arms attributed
implausibly to Aethelmaer, the abbey's founder.
(fn. 63) Fragments preserved in the vicarage garden
(fn. 64) include a 16th-century archway, and
above it a panel with the arms of Chandos:
Anne, daughter of William Stanley, earl of
Derby, married Grey Bridges, lord Chandos (d.). (fn. 65) A tomb slab of John of Cheltenham,
abbot of Eynsham (d. 1330), was removed to
Elsfield church probably before 1645. (fn. 66) A medieval tomb, perhaps of an abbot, survives in the
parish churchyard.