Chiselhampton

"Chisel" is derived from the old English ceosel or cisel meaning "gravel" or "shingle", referring to the river gravel beside the Thame on which some of the village is built. In a document dated 1147 the toponym is spelt Chiselentona. Chislehampton came into use later in the same century and was still in use in 1974. A document dated 1517 calls the village Chessyllyngton. It has been colloquially called Chisleton. ==Manors and houses==

The Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention Chiselhampton by name, but it ascribes a fee of land here to William Fitz-Ansculf of Dudley Castle. For some time thereafter, as Dudley passed to successive families, Chiselhampton remained with the Honour of Dudley. Several cottages and houses with timber frames and brick infill were built in the 17th century and survive today. They include Chiselhampton's only public house, the 17th-century Coach and Horses Inn. In the 18th century the Doyley family's wealth declined, so in 1748 Sir Thomas Doyley sold the Chiselhampton and Camoys manors to Charles Peers of Olney, Buckinghamshire, Son of Sir Charles Peers. The combined manor was still with the Peers family in 1958. The exterior is plain but the entrance hall has a fine, curved, cantilevered staircase, galleries at the first and second floors and is lit by a glass umbrella dome. An orangery was added in either 1790 ==Chapel and parish church==

By 1146 Chiselhampton had a chapel dedicated to Saint Mary. It was a Royal Peculiar of Dorchester Abbey and seems not to have been an independent parish. St Mary's had no graveyard: villagers buried their dead at Stadhampton, which was another of Dorchester Abbey's chapels and Peculiers. St Mary's chapel remained under Dorchester Abbey until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, when Stadhampton became a parish separate from Dorchester. Chiselhampton seems then to have become a chapelry of Stadhampton. Despite this new status, until about 1835 clergy for both Chiselhampton and Stadhampton were licensed not by the Bishop of Oxford but by the peculier of Dorchester. After the English Reformation Chiselhampton and Stadhampton always shared the same parish clergy. Until 1706 St Mary's chapel was reported to be in a good state of repair, but by 1717 the parish curate had taken the villagers to the peculiar court in Dorchester for failing to pay the church rate for the building's upkeep. In 1763 Charles Peers told the court that St Mary's was in "so ruinous and decayed a condition that the inhabitants cannot assemble for worship without manifest hazard [to] their lives", and so he requested permission to demolish the chapel and build a new one. In 1952–54 the church was restored and the artist John Piper who repainted the clockface. Concealed electric lighting was installed in the pews in 1956 but St Katherine's is still largely lit by its candle-lit candelabras. The church has since been made redundant and the ecclesiastical parish reunited with Stadhampton. The civil parishes had already been reunited in 1932. St Katherine's church is vested in the Churches Conservation Trust. Services are still held in St Katherine's three or four times a year, including reenactments of historic Anglican liturgy and west gallery music. ==Bridge and roads==

Chiselhampton has long been important as a crossing over the River Thame. A bridge has existed since at least 1398, when a presentment complained that "the King's road" at "Cheselhampton Brygwey" was flooded so that "men with horses and carts cannot pass thereby". In 1444 the villagers of Chiselhampton were granted pontage: the right to levy a toll to maintain the bridge. At that time it had timber spans built on stone piers. A 1628 estate map recorded the bridge as "Doyley Bridge". Over the years it has been rebuilt with stone arches, altered by successive repairs, extended, and in 1899 widened with steel troughing. It is now long and has eight stone arches, By the time the English Civil War broke out in August 1642 Chiselhampton was a strongly Puritan community. In November of that year King Charles I withdrew his court to Oxford. Royalist control of the bridges over the River Thame became vital to Oxford's defence, and by March 1643 the Royalists had gated Chiselhampton Bridge and allowed none to cross it "but on market days and sometimes during the daytime". By June 1643 the bridge was reported too damaged for vehicles to use, but still passable on horseback. On the night of 17 June Prince Rupert led about 1,000 cavalry and 800 infantry from Oxford across the bridge After the English Civil War the damage to the bridge was repaired. Its west face and parapet are 20th-century, from when the bridge was widened. Historically the Oxford–Stadhampton main road has been called Oxford Lane where it passes through Chiselhampton. In 1664 John Doyley was licensed to divert part of the road to make room for him to enlarge his mansion. In the village it is joined by a road from Clifton Hampden. This forms part of the route between Abingdon and Stadhampton and historically in Chiselhampton it has been called Abingdon Lane. Both roads are shown on estate maps dated 1628 and 1743. Since the early 1920s the main road has been classified B480 and the Clifton Hampden road has been classified B4015. ==Air crash==

V similar to Z6667, which crashed on Chiselhampton Hill On 5 July 1941 an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley V bomber aircraft, Z6667 of No. 10 Operational Training Unit RAF based at Abingdon, was on a night training flight when it broke up over Oxfordshire, crashed on Chiselhampton Hill and caught fire on impact. The crash was variously attributed to either a Luftwaffe night fighter or friendly fire by a local anti-aircraft unit. All six crewmen were killed. The pilot, RAF Flt Sgt AEW Lynch, is buried at Heston in Middlesex. Three of his crew were members of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Two are buried at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, and the other is buried at Tomnahurich in Inverness-shire. The other two crewmen were members of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. They are buried at Acklam and Cottingham in Yorkshire ==See also==