Ye Olde Woods

Alas, the parts did not arrive in the post. So it was a day of thumb twiddling and waiting. Still, not a bad place to have to diddle about in.. History is absolutely everywhere...

In ye olde gravel pits just south of Eynsham, a large number of mammoth bones have been discovered in the last ten years. But we didn't see any of them today. Archeologists have also unearthed the remains of a manmade stone and pebble causeway, estimated to be at least 4000 years old.

A Field in England.

571 AD in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles :- "In this year Cuthwolf ('Famous Wolf') fought the Britons at Bedcanford and captured four villages, Limbury, Aylesbury, Benson, and Eynsham; and in the same year he passed away".

This stone now stands at the back of Eynsham’s Catholic church, where Father John Tolkein gave it sanctuary. It was discovered in the ditch of a Bronze Age enclosure that preceded the Anglo-Saxon abbey. It's made of oolitic stone. The same kind that was used in the construction of the Rollright stones. The ditch may have once surrounded a settlement, or it or may have served some unknown sacred purpose, which is now lost through the mist of time. (source)