LATER HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND SYSTEM 121 



or at least as the residence of a county family. In each, 

 furthermore, there is Hkely to be an extensive park. Notable 

 residences and parks were, to be sure, frequently found where 

 there was enclosure by act of parhament. In these cases their 

 owners had increased the old enclosed area, but had not succeeded 

 in becoming sole proprietors within the townships in question. 

 What a nobleman or a gentleman of consequence in the sixteenth 

 century, however, considered most desirable as a residence was 

 an entire township. The extensive home manors of the mon- 

 asteries, often provided with well-built dwelhngs, formed ideal 

 seats for the rising gentry who secured them. As luxurious hfe in 

 the country became fashionable, each county came to have its 

 large Tudor and Jacobean houses. In Oxfordshire there are 

 thirty-four townships entirely given over to residential estates 

 of this kind. Five are the sites of monastic houses — Bruem, 

 Chilworth, Clattercote, Minster Lovell, Sandford. Seven boast 

 Elizabethan or Jacobean mansions — Chastleton, Cornbury, 

 Fifield, Neithrop, Water Eaton, Weston-on-Green, Yarnton. 

 Elsewhere the houses are of a somewhat later date, but some, like 

 Blenheim and Nuneham Courtenay, are well known.^ Together 

 the thirty-four constitute 8.4 per cent of the area of the county. 

 Often two of the reasons above given to explain enclosures 

 earHer than 1634 apphed to the same parish. Stonor is in the 

 Chilterns and at the same time is the seat of Lord Camoys, with 

 mansion and park; Cornbury Park, Dichley Park, and Wood- 

 stock Park, all notable residential estates. He within the ancient 

 area of Wychwood forest. At Sandford-on-the-Thames were a 

 preceptory of the Templars and the priory of Littlemore. Just 

 below is Nuneham Park, and above on the bank of the Cher well 

 is the Jacobean manor-house of Water Eaton. The coincidence 

 of park and stream is natural, since the taste of the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries dictated that, if possible, a mansion be 

 built not far from a stretch of water. 



^ Besides the sites of the five monasteries and the seven Elizabethan or Jaco- 

 bean mansions, the residential townships were and are Adwell, North Aston, Ascot, 

 Attington, Blenheim, Chislehampton, Crowmarch Gififord, Cuddesdon, Coding- 

 ton, Holton, Holwell, Nuneham Courtenay, Little Rollright, Shelswell, Souldern, 

 Stonor, Thomley, Tusmore, Over Warton, Waterperry, Wheatfield, Wilcote. 



