Leafield

Extract from Discovering Wychwood by Charles Keighley

4 km (3 miles) south-east of Shipton-under-Wychwood. 'La Felde' in 1213. Literally a field or open clearing high in the ancient Forest woodlands. Known as Field Town until the 19th century. A long village, with a large green. Once a local source of pottery, hence 'Chimney end' where wood burning kilns were located.

The powerful church of St Michael was designed by Sir G. G. Scott in the late 1850s, and is a landmark throughout Wychwood. The parish was created at the time of the clearances, having been part of Shipton.

• The Spindlebury Inn and restaurant, The Fox public house with food and accommodation.
• Post office and Village Stores.
• South of the village are small grassy fields with tall hedgerows. Elsewhere fields are larger and mostly arable. Small deciduous copses are scattered through the parish. An important local habitat is the limestone grassland in the dry valley south-west of the village.
• Good walks north along Hatching Lane and past Kingstanding Farm, built after the 19th-century woodland clearances, and south-east along Pay Lane to Whiteoak Green and beyond, or south from Lower End towards Crawley.