For people called Lidstone, see Lidstone (surname).

Lidstone is a hamlet on the River Glyme in Oxfordshire, about 3 miles (5 km) east of Chipping Norton. The hamlet is in Enstone civil parish, about 1+1⁄4 miles (2 km) west of Neat Enstone.

Archaeology

In Round Hill Field[1] on a ridge about 700 yards (640 m) south of Lidstone is a Bronze Age bowl barrow. It is 105 feet (32 m) in diameter and 2 feet (0.6 m) high. Originally it would have been substantially higher, and would have been created from spoil dug from a circular quarry trench 6+1⁄2 feet (2 m) deep. The trench has become filled in but will have survived as a buried feature. The barrow is the most northerly of a line of three that form a line between Lidstone and the village of Spelsbury. It is a scheduled monument. In the middle of the barrow is an Ordnance Survey triangulation station.[2]

Manor

By 1279 there was a hide of land at Lidstone that was part of the manor of Heythrop.[3]

Mill

Lidstone had a large watermill on the Glyme. It had the largest-diameter waterwheel in Oxfordshire: an overshot wheel 24 feet (7.3 m) in diameter[4] and 4 feet (1.2 m) wide. Via a 15-foot (4.6 m) pitwheel it drove three pairs of millstones. The mill had its own bread oven.[5] The mill was dismantled in 1976 and its machinery taken into storage, but the large iron waterwheel was left in place.[6]

References

  1. ^ Harden 1954, p. 143.
  2. ^ Historic England (22 March 1949). "Bowl barrow 500m south west of Hill Farm, Lidstone (1009430)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  3. ^ Crossley 1983, pp. 131–143
  4. ^ Foreman 1983, p. 45.
  5. ^ Foreman 1983, p. 111.
  6. ^ Foreman 1983, plate 22.

Sources

19th-century former chapel in Lidstone, now converted into a private garage