Chastleton
| Chastleton | |
|---|---|
 Chastleton House (left) and St Mary the Virgin parish church (right) |
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 Chastleton
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| Chastleton shown within Oxfordshire | |
| Population | 153 (2011 Census) |
| OS grid reference | SP2429 |
| Civil parish |
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| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Moreton-in-Marsh |
| Postcode district | GL56 |
| Dialling code | 01451 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | |
Chastleton is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold Hills in Oxfordshire, England, about 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Stow-on-the-Wold. Chastleton is in the extreme northwest of Oxfordshire, on the boundaries with both Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 153.
Chastleton Barrow or Burrow is an Iron Age hill fort southeast of the village. It is fortified with a single bank built of oolite and earth that encloses an area of about 3.5 acres (1.4 ha). Part of the fort was excavated in about 1881 and sections of the bank and areas near it were excavated in 1928–29. Hearths were found, along with Iron Age pottery and other artefacts that are now held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. These artefacts were used to date the fort as Early Iron Age, which in Britain is about 800 to 400 BC. The fort is now marked by a ring of mature trees.
In the eastern part of the parish are a number of prehistoric sites including a tumulus that still retains a few of the stones that formed its burial chamber. Archaeological examination of the surface at the centre of the tumulus found three flints that showed signs of being worked and two small fragments of human skull.
At Lower Brookend Farm in the north of the parish are the remains of a linear fishpond formed by damming a brook. It is either medieval or post-medieval and seems to have been abandoned by about 1800.
The earliest known record of the manor is from AD 777, when Offa, King of Mercia, made a gift of land at Chastleton to the Benedictine Eynsham Abbey in Worcestershire. The name Chastleton is of Saxon origin. It is possible that the prefix derives from the Saxon word ceastel, which may refer to a cairn or boundary marker. The suffix ‘ton’ derives from tun or town.
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Wikipedia