Spelsbury, Oxfordshire

Description
Spelsbury, a parish, with a village and the four hamlets of Dean, Ditchley, Fulwell, and Taston, in Oxfordshire, 1 1/2 mile NNW of Charlbury station on the Oxford and Worcester section of the G.W.R. It has a post office under Oxford; money order office, Chaddington; telegraph office, Oharlbury. Acreage, 4304; population, 501. There is a parish council consisting of seven members. The manor belongs to Viscount Dillon. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £150 with residence. Patron, Christchurch, Oxford. The church is an ancient and interesting building, chiefly in the Early English style, and apparently a portion only of a much larger Norman cruciform building. It has some fine ancient tombs and monuments, and a modern altar-tomb with recumbent effigy to Charles Henry, 14th Viscount Dillon, who died 18 Nov. 1865. The hamlets of Dean, Ditchley, and Fulwell have already been noticed under their respective headings. Taston is about a mile NE of Spelsbury. It has a very ancient wayside cross of stone, and also a fountain to the memory of Henrietta Viscountess Dillon, who died in 1862. Near the stone cross is a large stone, believed to be that from which the hamlet derives its same, Taston, a corruption of " Thor's stan " or the stone of Thor.