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Nestling on the slopes of Shotover one mile outside the Oxford City boundary,
Horspath is proud to remain a village. The parish boundary, along the Roman
road, encloses Bullingdon Green, where gentlemen used to sport and Civil War
battles were fought.
Shotover was once one of England’s smaller Royal forests, and is now a
conservation area and country park. The old bridle-path joining the London Road
through Wheatley gave the Anglo-Saxon name Horsepadan, which became Horsepath,
but in 1912 the parish council reverted to the unique form, Horspath. Medieval
evidence suggests two distinct hamlets, Upper or Old Horspath and Nether, Lower
or Church Horspath.
Three Oxford Colleges, Corpus Christi, Magdalen and Brasenose have owned land
and property in the parish. A connection with Queen’s College comes from the
15th century when student John Copcot, walking in Shotover Forest reading his
Aristotle, was attacked by a wild boar. He thrust the volume down the animal’s
throat and ‘the boar expired’. The college ceremony of carrying in the Boar’s
Head at Christmas resulted from this, as did the stained glass window in St
Giles’ church, presented in 1740 by the President of Magdalen to commemorate the
Copcot Legend.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries laundresses stretched their lines across
the green and market gardeners tended their vegetables for Pembroke College.
Farmers also reared pigs for the college tables. In the census of 1871, showing
a population of 373, 93 were employed on the land, 14 were craftsmen and there
were 30 other trades, a curate and two publicans. There were 12 farmers in 1841
and only two in 1990, but the village still has its two publicans.
Horspath is not a pretty village, but it has character. It boasts 15 listed
buildings including farm outbuildings and a cowhouse, the manor house, the
church, and two thatched cottages, of which there were once 17, but fire has
destroyed most. In 1936 the Queen’s Head public house caught fire and sparks
from the thatch destroyed two cottages opposite. The pub was restored with a
tiled roof, as was Shepherd’s Cottage, this thatch being burnt in the mid 1970s.
The Chequers Inn, although dated 1624, was built in the 19th century.
The manor house, part dating back to 1513 and with a Tudor staircase, is mainly
17th century with a 19th century addition. Its ghost, ‘The Grey Lady’, is
reputed to wander the landings and garden. Killed by her husband in a quarrel,
her body was placed in a priest’s hole. Several sightings have been reported and
in December 1878 a first-class shot claimed he had fired three times at the
figure, and found two bullets embedded in the wall. The present owner has done
much to refurbish and restore the manor to its former glory.
The church of St Giles, dating from the 12th century, is dedicated to the patron
saint of beggars and cripples, whose ceramic statuette, made by a local potter
in 1988, may be found in the south chapel. The church is the proud possessor of
an Elizabethan silver chalice, a pre-1740 faceless blacksmith clock, a carved
late Jacobean pulpit, six tuneful bells, medieval stained glass windows and
interesting memorial plaques. One of these to James Salisbury of Bullingdon
Green, who died in 1770, is elaborately decorated. Another is to the five
children of Thomas and Esther Herbert, who died from a recurrence of the plague
between 1686 and 1688. Esther, whose family founded New College, died also in
1688 aged 33.
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