Stanton Harcourt

Stanton Harcourt is an pleasant little village about 4 miles south-east of Witney and about 2 miles south-west of Eynsham, just off the B4449. In the centre of the village and along the road towards Standlake there are several attractive thatched cottages. The land round the village is very flat, being part of the flood plain between the River thames and the higher ground to the north. Near the village are flooded disused gravel pits.

In the centre of the village is Stanton Harcourt Manor House which is well-known for its 14th century medieval kitchens, the most complete surviving medieval kitchens in the country. In the grounds of the manor house is the 15th century Pope's Tower in which the poet Alexander Pope worked on his translation of Homer's Iliad.

Adjacent to the manor house is the cruciform Norman and Early English St. Michael's Church which dates from c. 1130. St. Michael's houses the mediaeval shrine of St Edburg of Bicester and contains the Harcourt Chapel with the monuments of the Harcourt family.

Stanton means "farmstead by the stones", and it is thought it was probably named after the nearby prehistoric stone circle known as the Devil's Quoits. The village became known as Stanton Harcourt after Robert de Harcourt of Bosworth, Leicestershire inherited lands of his father-in-law at Stanton in 1191. The manor has remained in the Harcourt family to the present day.

To the south of the village the derelict buildings of RAF Stanton Harcourt which was used during the second world war.