North Leigh

"NORTH LEIGH, a parish in the hundred of Wootton, county Oxford, 3 miles N.E. of Witney. The village, which is small, is wholly agricultural. About half a mile to the S. of the Roman Akeman Street, which passes by the northern boundary of the parish, the remains of a Roman villa were found in 1813, consisting of a spacious quadrangle 212 feet by 167. Its wall and foundations were clearly traceable, comprising galleries, baths, hypocausts, and apartments of various sizes floored with tesselated and mosaic pavements. Near the same spot were found above 100 Roman coins, chiefly of brass, struck during the reigns of Claudius and his successors. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford, value £147. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is an ancient structure with a chantry chapel attached. In the interior are recumbent effigies, in alabaster, of a knight and his lady, a monument to William Lenthall, Esq., father of the Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Charles I., and several handsome monuments of the Perrot family, who formerly had a seat here. The parochial charities produce about £51 per annum, of which £3 go to the school." [The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]