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Crowell parish covers some 996 acres extending from the Lower Icknield Way
approximately three and a half miles in a south-easterly direction up onto the
Chiltern ridge, reaching a height of 800 ft at one point. Nowhere is the parish
more than half a mile wide. Crowell Hill is covered in the main with beech wood
and lower chalk slopes. The lowland is mainly arable. It is thought that the
name Crowell comes from crow’s well, spring or stream as the village grew up at
the source of the Pleck, a tributary of the river Thame.
Ellwood House is the only remaining farmhouse north of the B4009, of which there
were four in 1839. The house dates from the 16th century, the front of which is
of timber-frame construction concealed by chequer brick. There still remains a
raised granary to the rear of the house. In the late 19th century the house and
land was bought by Joseph Hill of Kingston Blount and the house restored as a
farmhouse. It still remains in the Hill family today.
Ellwood House was named after Thomas Ellwood, a Quaker and friend of John
Milton. Thomas Ellwood was born in Crowell in 1639 and attended the grammar
school in Thame for a short time. He became a Quaker in 1659, probably as a
result of several visits to Isaac Penning-ton at Chalfont St Giles. Because of
his beliefs he was imprisoned for a short while in Oxford Castle. He finally
left Crowell in 1665, the year in which he read Milton’s manuscript of Paradise
Lost and asked him what he had to say about Paradise Found. This is said to have
prompted Milton to write Paradise Regained.
The village used to be larger than it is today and according to the 1851 census
there were 16 lacemakers, three chairmakers, a chair bottomer, a wheelwright, a
carpenter, a victualler and a number of farm labourers. Today although there are
a couple of houses in the village housing farm workers and a farm at the top of
the hill, the majority of people work either in Oxford or towards London. One of
the longer established village families runs a funeral service business, the
mortuary and chapel of rest being situated close to the church and village pub.
The Catherine Wheel public house was used by drovers in the last century herding
their cattle from the west country to the eastern counties. There was a lean-to
shelter with an earth floor to the rear of the pub where they slept. This area
now forms part of the bar. In 1859 a great part of the village was destroyed by
fire including the pub, which was one of the first buildings to be rebuilt.
John Bunyan is said to have stayed at the Catherine Wheel between his spells in
gaol. He entertained the locals on his flute and there was until recently a copy
of the chair that he used in prison in which one of the back struts was in fact
his flute. Rumour has it that the prison officers never discovered the hiding
place and so he was able to play his flute when alone in his prison cell.
The parish church of St Mary the Virgin serves Kingston Blount as well as
Crowell. There is evidence to suggest that the church existed in the 12th
century though the first documents only date back to 1231. The church was almost
totally rebuilt in the 1870s, using as many of the original materials as
possible so as to keep its 14th century appearance. The lychgate was added in
1879. In 1895 the west window was filled with stained glass in memory of the
rector at that time.
There is no longer a school in Crowell though records show that there was a
writing master here in 1713. During the 1830s there was a day school teaching 30
boys and girls, supported by the rector and payments from the children’s
parents. By 1854 the older children were going to school in Chinnor at the
rector’s expense and by 1878 the school in Crowell had closed, the children
attending school in Aston Rowant or Chinnor as they do today.
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