Lidstone


Lidstone is a hamlet on the River Glyme in Oxfordshire, about east of Chipping Norton. The hamlet is in Enstone civil parish, about west of Neat Enstone.

Archaeology

In Round Hill Field on a ridge about south of Lidstone is a Bronze Age bowl barrow. It is in diameter and high. Originally it would have been substantially higher, and would have been created from spoil dug from a circular quarry trench deep. The trench has become filled in but will have survived as a buried feature. The barrow is the most northerly of a line of three that form a line between Lidstone and the village of Spelsbury. It is a scheduled monument. In the middle of the barrow is an Ordnance Survey triangulation station.

Manor

By 1279 there was a hide of land at Lidstone that was part of the manor of Heythrop.

Mill

Lidstone had a large watermill on the Glyme. It had the largest-diameter waterwheel in Oxfordshire: an overshot wheel in diameter and wide. Via a pitwheel it drove three pairs of millstones. The mill had its own bread oven. The mill was dismantled in 1976 and its machinery taken into storage, but the large iron waterwheel was left in place.