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Woodeaton is a small Oxfordshire parish, four miles north-east of the centre of Oxford city and a little west of the wide marshy level of the ‘Plain of Otmoor.’ It stands on a low, detached and rounded hill, 315 feet above sea level, and 120 feet above Otmoor. In old days it must have been difficult of access, for Otmoor spreads away to the east of it; low pastures along the river Cherwell close it in on the north and west, while south-westwards, too, the land is low-lying and marshy. Even to the south-east a marshy hollow separates it from the wooded slopes of Beckley and Elsfield, once part of Shotover Forest. However, the well-known Roman road which connects Dorchester (Oxon.) with Alchester, and which passes along the foot of Shotover, and traverses the village of Beckley and the plain of Otmoor, runs within two miles of Woodeaton; in dry seasons it may have helped those who wished to get to the spot.
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- Copyright © M. V. Taylor 1917. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
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page 99 note 1 These finds for the most part passed into private hands. Mr. Gordon of Elsfield had a large collection, many of which he presented to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Mr. Windham Hughes of Bicester, formerly of Watereaton, has recently presented his collection to the same institution, while that of Sir Arthur Evans is on loan there. Some brooches have found their way to the British Museum, but are said to come from Watereaton, almost certainly a mistake for Woodeaton (see fibulae nos. I, 33, 62, and pp. 104, 119). These have not been examined for the purpose of this article; when it was being written they were not available, having been put away in safety till the end of the war.
page 99 note 2 H. Alexander, Place Names of Oxfordshire, p. 104, quoting Kemble, , Codex Diplomatics, iii, 404, ii, 79, 151Google Scholar (nos. 290, 340), Birch Cartul. Saxon, ii, 265, no. 607Google Scholar. The following is a translation from the Anglo-Saxon, kindly revised by Dr. Bradley for this article: ‘First from Wifel's brook and so up and along the little brook till it comes to the coloured floor and then along the green valley by the two little hills till it comes to the plantation of Wulfun, the son of Willa [taking Kemble's corrected reading]; and so crosswise over the furlong; then to the thornbush westward, where the big thorn stood, and so to the bird pond and then along the ditch till it comes to the muddy spring, and so along the brook till it comes to Cherwell; then the boundary is the Cherwell afterwards.’
page 99 note 3 See Haverfield, Romanisation of Roman Britain.
page 99 note 4 At Brough in Westmorland, , Cumb. and Westm. Arch. Soc. Trans, iii (new ser.), 70–71Google Scholar; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (1st series), iii, 222, iv, 129, (2nd series) iii, 256, vii, 19; Journ. of Arch. Inst. xxiii, 62; Arcb. lv, 184.
page 100 note 1 Finds here are first mentioned by Plot, Nat. Hist. of Oxon. (1677), p. 319; others are recorded by Hussey, Roman Road from Alchester to Dorchester (1841), p. 38, and Journ. of Arch. Inst. xii, 279 (for two brooches nos. 51 and 55 and coin), Berks, Bucks and Oxon. Arch. Journ. iv, 42.
page 100 note 2 Journ. of Arch. Inst. iii, 116; Soc. of Antiq. Proc. (1st series) i, 107; Berks, Bucks and Oxon. Journ. iv, 43.
page 100 note 3 Oxford Archit. and Hist. Soc. Proc. 1895, 77; 1862, 186–9; Berks, Bucks and Oxon Journ. iv, 11; Journ. of Arch. Inst. xx, 73–4.
page 100 note 4 ibid. ii, 350.
page 100 note 5 ibid. iii, 125; Oxford Archit. and Hist. Soc. 1894, 50.
page 100 note 6 Journ. of Arch. Inst. vi, 183, xii, 284; Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. vi, 52; Berks, Bucks and Oxon. Journ. iv, 19.
page 100 note 7 Oxford Archit, and Hist. Soc. Proc. 1894, 36; Journ. of Arch. Inst. iv, 74, and Berks, Bucks and Oxon. Journ. iv, 21. Mr. Manning, who died on active service in 1917, left to the Bodleian Library his manuscript records of many years' careful research into Oxfordshire and Berkshire antiquities. They contain very full notes, illustrated with photographs and drawings, on the Late Celtic finds at Woodeaton. Unfortunately the writer was able to consult them only after this article had gone to press; all that can be done now is to give from them a few additional references. Otherwise they might, with great advantage, have been published in place of the account of Late Celtic finds here given. They should certainly be examined for further information. Mr. Manning's collection of antiquities has passed to his heir, a minor.
page 100 note 8 Haverfield, F., Soc. of Antiq. Proc. xviii, 10Google Scholar.
page 102 note 1 Life and Times (O.H.S.) ii, 346–7.
page 102 note 2 Specimen of a History of Oxfordshire (1815), p. 65.
page 102 note 3 Berks, Bucks end Oxon. Journ. iv, 42; Oxford Archit. and Hist. Soc. Proc. vi passim.
page 102 note 4 Hussey, as above, p. 38. Edo, edon and the like occur not seldom as terminations of Celtic names (see Holder, , Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz, i, 1407Google Scholar). The original seems to have vanished. Eph. Epigr. iii, 132, p. 145.
page 103 note 1 Arch. Ael. vi (3rd series), 225–6, fig. 6.
page 119 note 1 Apparently with several others, see above, p. 102.
page 119 note 2 Berks, Bucks and Oxon. Arch. Soc. iv, 42–43.
page 119 note 3 Manning collection; Manning MSS. in the Bodleian Library; Numismatic Chron. vii (1844), 43Google Scholar.
page 119 note 4 Hussey, p. 38.
page 119 note 5 Warton, op. cit. p. 65 n.
page 119 note 6 Oxford Arch, and Hist. Soc. Proc. iii, 174, 223; Numismatic Soc. Proc. 18th March, 1875, p. 7; Berks, Bucks and Oxon. Arch. Soc. iv, 42–43.
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