Kirtlington - Economic and Social History

Economic and Social History

Kirtlington had two water mills on the River Cherwell. They are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and in subsequent documents in about 1240, 1538 and 1689. All documents thereafter refer to only one mill in the parish. There was once a horse mill in the village.

There were small enclosures of farmland in the parish in the 13th century and 99 acres (40 ha) had been enclosed by 1476, but at that stage most of the parish was still farmed under an open field system. By 1750 the enclosed land totalled about of which 900 acres (360 ha), and the remaining common lands were enclosed in 1815.

In 1583 a draper called John Phillips bequeathed the rental income from a house in Woodstock to employ a schoolmaster in Kidlington. His bequest did not provide for a schoolhouse, so a tenement called Church House was used. In 1759 the school had to close because the house in Woodstock had decayed to the point that it was unfit to be let. In 1766 the house was let on a repairing lease to George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough and between 1774 and 1778 the school reopened. The vicar and Sir James Dashwood, 2nd Baronet were the governors, and it seems that subsequently the Dashwoods as well as the Phillips endowment supported the school.

By 1808 two other schools had been founded in Kirtlington, and by 1814 one of them was a National School. In 1833 the three schools were effectively merged and in 1834 a purpose-built schoolhouse was opened. In 1947 it was reorganised as a junior and infants' school and in 1951 it became a voluntary aided school. It is now Kirtlington Church of England School.