- J.A. Giles’s 1852  History of Witney with notices of the neighbouring parishes and hamlets, Cogges, Crawley, Curbridge, Ducklington, Hailey, Minster Lovel, and Stanton Harcourt (view online with Google Books)
- W.J. Monk’s 1894 History of Witney (from the Internet Archive; you can download it as a PDF file)

Note: two of the most recent histories of Witney are not online.  The first is Volume 14 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, covering Witney, Hailey, Crawley and Curbridge.  There are lending copies in Witney Library.  The other is The Henry Box School: its place in history, by Jane Cavell; it covers 350 years of the history of the school and town, from 1660 to 2010.  You can buy it from the Museum’s shop along with numerous other local publications.

The woollen industry

- The Witney Blanket Story
- Witney Wool & Blanket Trail – a walking tour of the town

Trades directories

- Witney is covered in the Oxfordshire sections of the following trades directories, all on the Historical Directories website: Robson, 1839; Pigot, 1842 and 1844; Gardner, 1852; Post Office, 1854; Harrod, 1876; Kelly, 1895, 1907 and 1911
- Transcript of the Witney entry from 1791 Universal British Directory

Miscellaneous

- text of the AD 969 charter
- the Bishops’ Palace: visitor information and a PDF version of the leaflet
- a project to document the history of De Havilland’s in Witney, with some notes on its Home Guard platoon
- Martin Loader’s history of the Fairford Branch Line including many photographs of Witney’s railway stations
- Malc’s Witney Scrapbook, a selection of photographs and ephemera
- a site devoted to of one of Witney’s oldest streets, West End
- a history of Witney Town Band
- use ‘Witney’ as a keyword to search the BBC’s WW2 People’s War site; here for example you’ll find memories of some of the Ashford Grammar School boys who were in Witney during the war.

 Some local history sites relating to the Witney area
Note: many local history societies do not yet have websites but you can find contact details here.

Alvescot
- Alvescot Village, with history, old photos, transcript of burial register, and more

 Aston
- Aston History Group
- Basque refugees at St Joseph’s (now Westfield House), Aston

Bampton
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- the Parish Council website includes a ‘History’ section and gives contact details for the Bampton Community Archive
- the Community Archive has a new blog: we await developments with interest
‘150 years of fiddle playing and Morris dancing at Bampton, Oxfordshire’, by Keith Chandler

Bradwell
- a history of Bradwell (or Broadwell); follow the links ‘Memories’ and ‘Squire Fox’ for more detail
- draft text for Victoria County History

Brize Norton
- a history of the church
- war memorial
- a history of RAF Brize Norton

Burford
- Burford Buildings & People – selected material accompanying the recent book on this subject.  Explore the buildings in the main streets and find out who lived there.  Also includes transcripts of some Tudor wills.
- tour of the church
- war memorial
- photographs by Robert Mealing
- Levellers’ Day

Carterton
- brief history from the Town Council’s official guide

Chimney
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire

Clanfield
- the village magazine, The Clanfield What?, reports meetings of the Clanfield Historical Society, and often contains other items of historical interest
- the field system: an article by Ernest Pocock, who went on to write an excellent history of Clanfield

Cogges
- text from Vol. 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- monumental inscriptions from the church and churchyard

Cote
- Baptist chapel

Curbridge
- a village history has got off to a great start, with Bill Mills’s reminscences of Curbridge in the late 1940s and a good selection of photographs

Ducklington
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
Ducklington History Group publications and contact details

Eynsham
- text from Vol. 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- click on the ‘Heritage’ link on the Parish Council site for information about the Eynsham History Group, online versions of their journal (Eynsham Record),  a history of Eynsham Abbey and much more
- 47 ways of spelling the village’s name and other snippets of local history

Filkins
- draft text for Victoria County History

Finstock
- Finstock Local History Society 

Hailey
- Whit-Monday hunts and the Whit Horn

The Hanboroughs (Church Hanborough and Long Hanborough)
- a ‘concise and selective history’ of Hanborough
- text from Vol 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- Combe Mill
- Oxford Bus Museum

Kelmscott
- Kelmscott Manor
- draft text for Victoria County History

 Leafield
- see the ‘Leafield Past’ section of the Leafield Village site

Lew
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire

Minster Lovell
- 1941 film clip from WPA Film Library
- The Minster Lovell Heritage Centre
- see also Dr Giles’s History of Witney (link given in Witney section at top of page)

North Leigh
- text from Vol. 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- ‘An Elizabethan survey of North Leigh’ – an article by Beryl Schumer
- video clip about the Roman villa

Northmoor
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- old postcards and 1891 directory

Ramsden
- the four parishes of Ramsden, Finstock with Fawler, Leafield with Wychwood, and Wilcote now form the ‘Forest Edge Benefice’, which has an informative newsletter, Forest Edge News

Shifford
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire

Shilton
- village history and an essay on ‘Stonelands’

South Leigh
- text from Vol. 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- Malcolm Osmundson’s history of South Leigh (part 3 includes names of those who died in the two World Wars)
- monumental inscriptions in the church and churchyard
- photographs, by Robert Mealing, of the church and its wall paintings

Standlake
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- Oxfordshire Parish Package (PDF file, 1.19 Mbytes)
- Standlake & District Historical Society

Stanton Harcourt
- text from Vol. 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire
- David Stead’s 1998 article, ‘An arduous and unprofitable undertaking: the enclosure of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire’
- photograph, by Benedict Ramos, of the church and Pope’s Tower

 ‘Stonelands’ (Sworn Lains) lying-in home
see under Shilton; see also http://www.swornlains-cottage.co.uk/7.html

Swinbrook
- don’t miss the triple-decker Fettiplace memorials in the church

Weald
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire

Wilcote
- text from Vol. 12 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire

 Witney
see top of page

The Wychwoods (Ascott-, Milton- and Shipton-under-Wychwood)
- Wychwoods Local History Society
- various historical publications are available from the Wychwood Project

Yelford
- text from Vol. 13 of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire

 
Some sites relating to the whole of Oxfordshire
- parts of the Oxfordshire Record Office catalogue are online via Access to Archives; see also Heritage Search
- Dr Robert Plot’s Natural History of Oxfordshire (1705 edition) includes a fascinating account of the Witney blanket industry and all sorts of other historical gems
- Oxfordshire feet of fines, 1335–1509
- Heritage Search: search indexes of Oxfordshire Studies, the Oxfordshire Record Office, Oxfordshire Photographic Archive and more if you have an Oxfordshire County Council library ticket, you can use it to log in to search Jackson’s Oxford Journal and other nineteenth century newspapers
- contact details for local history societies
- old maps of Oxfordshire
- Oxfordshire Buildings Record  and their exhibition on Discovering Oxfordshire’s Buildings
- table of contents of Oxoniensia, from 1936 onwards, with links to online articles
1826 and 1830 poll books for Oxfordshire are online via Google Books
- Queer Objects on Horseback: an online exhibition about the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars, or Oxfordshire Yeomanry
- Soldiers of Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire family history (general)

- Oxfordshire pages of GENUKI (UK and Ireland Genealogy)
- Oxfordshire Family History Society
- search or browse the archives of the Oxfordshire-L genealogy mailing list
- Oxfordshire Record Office
- family history sources at Oxfordshire Studies
- OXSIL, the Oxfordshire Surname Interest List

Some sites devoted to particular Oxfordshire families or surnames

- Brogden
- Lanchbury/Lainchbury
- Lankshear
- Oliver family of Stonesfield, Combe and Finstock
- Pratley one-name study

Please let us know if you find a broken link or would like to recommend other websites relevant to local history and family history in the Witney area.