Spelsbury

Spelsbury is a village and civil parish about north of Charlbury and about southeast of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. The village is on a narrow hill between the Coldron and Taston brooks overlooking the River Evenlode and the ancient Wychwood Forest to the south. Spelsbury parish includes the hamlets of Dean and Taston, and also includes Ditchley Park. The 2011 census recorded the parish's population as 305.

==History== The toponym is derived from the Old English for either "spying place" or the place of a person called "Speol". It was first recorded in the Cartularium Saxonicum in 1010 as Speoles byrig. In 1086 the Domesday Book recorded the village as Spelesberie. Spelsbury has a group of almshouses built in 1688 by John Carry. Coldron Mill, south-west of the village, is on a site where a mill has existed for at least a thousand years. Winterberry Park built in 1725 by Thomas Archer is on the parish borders. In the village a drinking fountain in the shape of a shell was built around 1855 to commemorate Constantine Dillon, the deceased son of Henry Dillon, 13th Viscount Dillon. The poet John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester and his wife Elizabeth Malet lived and are buried in Spelsbury. The actor Sir Ben Kingsley lives in the village.