Enstone Parish Church

General information

Enstone parish is the largest of the parishes in Oxfordshire it includes the villages and hamlets of Neat Enstone, Church Enstone, Cleveley, Lidstone, Gagingwell, Chalford, Radford, Fulwell and Broadstonehill.
About 500 yards south of Neat Enstone, hidden amongst the trees, there are three standing stones which are the remains of a chambered long barrow. The boundary stone or giant stone after which the village is named both appear to refer to the Hoarstone, the tallest of the three standing stones.
There are various explanations as to how the village name came about as follows:
Enstone's toponym is derived from a standing stone called the Ent Stone, part of the ruins of a neolithic tomb just off the Charlbury Road. The site is also known as the Hoar Stone. It is a scheduled monument.
It is also thought that the name 'Enstone' originates from 'Enna's stone', which means a 'boundary stone of a man called Enna'.
Another possibility is that the words 'ent' and 'stan' literally mean giant stone.
At Church Enstone is the parish church, St. Kenelm's Church, the earliest parts of which are Norman. However the building has been rebuilt in stages since the 12th century.
East of St. Kenelm's church is a mediaeval tithe barn that was built for Winchcombe Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Gloucestershire that owned the manor of Enstone. The barn has a cruck roof and a date stone from 1382 but it is thought that it is actually late 15th century, when it may have been rebuilt retaining the date stone from the earlier building.
Running through the parish of Enstone is the River Glyme, a tributary of the River Evenlode. It rises about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Chipping Norton, and flows southeast past Old Chalford, Enstone, Kiddington, Glympton and Wootton, Woodstock and through Blenheim Park. At Wootton the Glyme is joined by a tributary, the River Dorn. The Glyme joins the Evenlode just south of the park near Bladon. The Glyme is dammed at Cleveley, Kiddington, Glympton and Blenheim. At Blenheim, "Capability" Brown used the river to form the lake in front of Blenheim Palace. The upper part of the Glyme Valley around the river's headwaters is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The Glyme Valley Way is a footpath that follows almost the entire course of the river. The river's name is derived from the Brittonic for "bright stream".