For most of its history Stonor was called Upper Assendon and was a
hamlet in an
exclave of
Pyrton parish. In 1896 the detached part was made into a new civil parish of Stonor, named after the adjacent
country house at
Stonor Park. Stonor was merged with neighbouring
Pishill in 1922 to become a new civil parish called Pishill with Stonor. At the 1921 census (the last before the abolition of the civil parish), Stonor had a population of 176. During and after the
English Reformation the Stonor family and many other local gentry were
recusants. In 1581 the
Jesuit priests
Edmund Campion and
Robert Parsons lived and worked at Stonor Park, and on 4 August 1581 a raid on the house found a press on which
Roman Catholic publications had secretly been printed. The elderly Lady Cecily Stonor, her son John, the Jesuit priest
William Hartley, the printers and four servants were taken prisoner, and in 1585 Hartley was exiled. Despite continued prosecutions and fines the Stonors and a number of Upper Assendon families remained
Roman Catholic throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, attending
Mass at the Stonors' 12th century private
chapel. Between 1716 and 1756
John Talbot Stonor,
Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District used
Stonor Park as his headquarters. In the first half of the 19th century, the number of Roman Catholics in Upper Assendon increased, partly by local people converting, possibly aided by the fact that the only local school at the time was a Roman Catholic one endowed by the Stonors. The 1851 census recorded 50 Catholics in the village, but in the final quarter of the 19th century the numbers sharply declined. ==Stone circle==