Eynsham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eynsham centre

Eynsham is a large village in Oxfordshire, England with a population of 5,000, lying six miles between Witney and Oxford. The village grew up near to the historically important ford of Swinford on the flood plain of the River Thames, now the site of the privately-owned Swinford Toll Bridge, and was later served by a wharf on the Thames, near the present Eynsham Lock.

Eynsham was an important coaching stop on the London to Fishguard trunk road, although since 1936 the A40 has bypassed the village just to the north. A railway link running west from Oxford through Eynsham to Witney and Fairford was opened in 1861 but closed in 1962.

Eynsham is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Egonesham where it is described as one of four towns captured by the Anglo-Saxons from the Britons in AD 571. Its name is recorded in 864 (in the dative) as Egenes homme = "Ægen's enclosure or river-meadow".

In 1005 Aethelmar, kinsman of Aethelred II founded a Benedictine Abbey. By the medieval period Eynsham Abbey was one of the largest in the area, but was dissolved at the Reformation in 1538 and only a few remains are still visible. The parish church of St. Leonard's has a much-restored medieval structure and is situated on Market Square. Eynsham has two schools, Eynsham Community Primary and Bartholomew School.

Local industries include gravel extraction and the large magnet factory established by Oxford Instruments, pioneer of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, which is now operated by Siemens AG.