Forest Hill, Oxfordshire
Encyclopedia
Forest Hill is a village in Forest Hill with Shotover
Forest Hill with Shotover
Forest Hill with Shotover is a civil parish in South Oxfordshire. It includes the village of Forest Hill , hamlets of Shotover Cleve and Shotover Edge and country estate of Shotover House...

 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 4.5 miles (7.2 km) east of Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

.

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 forst-hyll meaning "hill ridge". It has no etymological
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 connection with forests.

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 William the Conqueror
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...

's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux owned Forest Hill. He had two manors
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 which 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 the larger and Ilbert de Lacy held the smaller.

The d'Ivry manor changed hands and was divided. By 1242-43 one part had been bestowed upon the Augustinian
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

 Chalcombe Priory 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,...

. The other part was bestowed upon the Benedictine
Order of Saint Benedict
The Order of Saint Benedict is a Roman Catholic religious order of independent monastic communities that observe the Rule of St. Benedict. Within the order, each individual community maintains its own autonomy, while the organization as a whole exists to represent their mutual interests...

 Studley Priory, Oxfordshire
Studley Priory, Oxfordshire
Studley Priory was a small house of Benedictine nuns ruled by a prioress, founded before 1176 in the hamlet of Studley, in what is now the village of Horton-cum-Studley, seven miles north-east of Oxford, and in the County of Oxfordshire. In that year it received a grant from Bernard of St. Walery...

. Both priories retained their respective holdings until 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 the 16th century.

Ilbert de Lacy also held the manor in the adjacent parish of Stanton St. John
Stanton St. John
Stanton St. John is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire about northeast of the centre of Oxford.-Manor:The Domesday Book records that in 1086 William the Conqueror's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux owned the manor Stanton St...

. In about 1100 de Lacy's son forefeited both manors, and his holding at Forest Hill passed to Robert D'Oyly
Robert D'Oyly
Robert D'Oyly was a Norman nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror on the Norman Conquest, his invasion of England. He died in 1091.-Background:Robert was the son of Walter D'Oyly and elder brother to Nigel D'Oyly...

. D'Oyly gave the tenancy to one Hugh de Tew, but after 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...

 was founded in 1129 de Tew gave the tenancy to the Abbey. In 1526 the de Lacy manor was granted to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for his new college at Oxford, but in 1529 King Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 stripped Wolsey of his office and of all his property.

After the dissolution of the monasteries each of the Forest Hill estates quickly passed through the hands of owners who may have bought and sold former monastic lands as speculative investments. Then Sir John Brome, lord of Holton
Holton, Oxfordshire
Holton is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire about east of Oxford. The parish is bounded to the southeast by the River Thame, to the east and north by the Thame's tributary Holton Brook, to the south by London Road and to the west by field boundaries with the parishes of Forest Hill...

, bought and reunited the estates: the two parts of the de Lacy estate in 1544 and the d'Ivry estate in 1545. The Forest Hill estate remained in the Brome family for four generations but fell into debt, was mortgaged twice in the 1620s and finally was sold in 1630. From 1621 the house had been let out, and the second mortgage was a loan of £500 from the tenant to the Bromes.

Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

 bought the Forest Hill estate in 1807. It remained in the college's ownership until 1953.

The age of the original manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 is unknown. It was garrisoned in the early years of the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

 by Royalist
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...

 troops, later supplanted by Parliamentarian
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...

 forces that occupied Forest Hill. In 1643 the poet John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 stayed at the house, where he courted the daughter of the family, 16-year-old Mary Powell.

The Scots poet William Julius Mickle
William Julius Mickle
William Julius Mickle was a Scottish poet.Son of the minister of Langholm, Dumfriesshire, he was for some time a brewer in Edinburgh, but failed. He moved to England where he worked as a corrector for the Clarendon Press at Oxford. In 1771-75 Mickle lodged at the manor house in Forest Hill,...

 (1735–88) lodged at the manor house 1771-75. Here he translated the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 epic poem the Lusiad
Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas , usually translated as The Lusiads, is a Portuguese epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões ....

by Luís de Camões
Luís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...

. In 1781 he married the daughter of the house, Mary Tomkins, and settled in Wheatley
Wheatley, Oxfordshire
Wheatley is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of Oxford.-Archaeology:There was a Roman villa on Castle Hill, about southeast of the parish church. It was excavated in 1845, when Roman coins dating from AD 260 to 378 and fragments of Roman pottery and Roman tiles were...

. Mickle and his wife are buried in St. Nicholas' churchyard.

Despite the manor house's rich history, in 1854 Lincoln College demolished it and re-used the stones to build a new house on the site.

Churches

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 Saint Nicholas the Confessor may have begun as a chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

, but by 1341 Forest Hill was a separate parish and St. Nicholas' was being referred to as an ecclesia parochialis ("parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

"). It was given to 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...

 in about 1140. When the de Lacy manor was granted to Cardinal Wolsey in 1526, St. Nicholas' church was included. Thereafter the advowson
Advowson
Advowson is the right in English law of a patron to present or appoint a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation. In effect this means the right to nominate a person to hold a church office in a parish...

 of the parish remained with whoever owned the manor. In 1807 Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

 bought the estate, including the manor house and St. Nicholas' church.

St. Nicholas' church building 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...

, and the 12th century 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...

 arch is probably original. The church was rebuilt in the 13th century in the transitional style from Norman architecture
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...

 to the Early English Gothic style: the lancet windows on both sides of the chancel and the gabled bellcote
Bell-Cot
A bell-cot, bell-cote or bellcote, is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells, supported on brackets projecting from a wall or built on the roof of chapels or churches which have no towers. It often holds the Sanctus bell rung at the Consecration....

 at the west end of the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

 date from this rebuilding. Later the present west window was added in the Perpendicular Gothic style. In the same period a south porch was built. Its inner door is Perpendicular, but the outer is transitional between Norman and Early English and has been re-set, presumably from where the Perpendicular doorway is now. In 1639 buttresses were built against the west wall to support the bellcote. The bellcote has two bells, cast in 1652.

In 1847 the architect James Cranston restored
Victorian restoration
Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...

 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...

. The Oxford architectural writer and publisher J.H. Parker
John Henry Parker
John Henry Parker CB , English writer on architecture and publisher, was the son of John Parker, a London merchant....

 designed the east window of three traceried lancets
Lancet window
A lancet window is a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singly or in pairs.The motif first...

. In 1852 the Gothic Revival architect
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...

 restored the nave and added the organ chamber and north aisle, re-setting the original transitional style north doorway in the new wall. A Sanctus bell was cast and hung at the same time as the restoration.

A Wesleyan
Methodist Church of Great Britain
The Methodist Church of Great Britain is the largest Wesleyan Methodist body in the United Kingdom, with congregations across Great Britain . It is the United Kingdom's fourth largest Christian denomination, with around 300,000 members and 6,000 churches...

 congregation was established in Forest Hill in the 19th century. It originally had a wooden chapel, but in 1898 opened a new brick-built one.

Economic history

The parish has had a watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...

 since the 13th century, when land was granted to Osney Abbey in 1221 and 1229 to build one on Bayswater Brook. The present Bayswater Mill at the west end of the parish, just north of Sandhills, is mainly eighteenth century.

Forest Hill was a separate civil parish until 1881, when it was merged with Shotover
Shotover
Shotover is a hill and forest in Oxfordshire, England.Shotover Hill is east of Oxford. Its highest point is above sea level.-Early history:The toponym may be derived from the Old English scoet ofer, meaning "steep slope"...

.
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