Fordwells

Extract from Discovering Wychwood by Charles Keighley

3 km (2 miles) north of Minster Lovell. Literally 'the spring by the ford'. The spring remains. In the Forest woodlands until the 19th century clearances, when the hamlet was built and populated by local families who worked the newly cleared land.

The first child was born here in 1860, and the 1861 census included 3 sawyers, a wheelwright and a carpenter all from the Bicester area in lodgings with a local agricultural labourer and his wife.

• Three of the four approaches to the hamlet are still wooded, with substantial woodlands west towards Swinbrook.
• There has been new planting in the valley towards Langley.