Swinbrook

Extract from Discovering Wychwood by Charles Keighley

3 km (2 miles) east of Burford, on the River Windrush. Swinbrook is a very pretty small village with 17th-and 18th-century houses and cottages. Its name in Old English means 'the brook of swine'. Perhaps pigs were grazed in the Forest, remains of which still lie north towards South Lawn, the site of a former Forest lodge.

• St Mary's Church, mostly Decorated and Perpendicular, with interesting monuments and wood carving. The Mitford sisters are buried here.
• On one side of the river at the entrance to the village lies the pretty cricket field; on the other, The Swan Inn with food.
• Swinbrook is a hilly parish, with valleys running down to the river. Above the village fields are mostly medium sized arable, but surrounding the village and nearer the river fields are smaller, mostly grassy, with prominent hedgerows.
• Considerable woodland exists north of the parish and around Dean Bottom, near the old medieval village of Widford.
• Important habitats are the ancient woodland to the north of the parish, which contains oak with an understorey of coppiced hazel, and marshy meadowland adjoining the Windrush.
• Riverside walks upstream to Widford and downstream to Asthall and Minster Lovell.