The best general history available for Warborough & Shillingford is the Victorian County History. The VCH began in 1899 with the aim of producing an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of England covering each town and village. The volumes for each county are divided into hundreds which from the 11th century was the next layer of administration in the county. Hundreds were eventually abolished in 1894 and replaced with district councils. Some counties’ histories were completed earlier than others – some have never been completed. Oxfordshire is still being worked on but we are very fortunate that our volume is complete. There is no official funding for the VCH – all the money for research has to be raised in the respective counties.
Warborough & Shillingford are in the hundred of Ewelme and the Ewelme volume was published in 2016 and Warborough including Shillingford pages are online.
www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol18/pp393-421
There are privately owned printed copies in the village.
Following on from the publication of the VCH a further book on the Ewelme Hundred was published in 2021. This is ‘Peasant Perceptions of Landscape, Ewelme Hundred, South Oxfordshire 500-1650’ by Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes, Oxford University Press, 2021. This book draws extensively on the research already done for the VCH but also had the benefit for further grants which enabled further archaeological research using the most up-to-date techniques, buildings surveys including dendrochronology dating and where this did not provide a result radio-carbon dating. This produced some interesting results for houses in Warborough & Shillingford. There is one privately owned copy of this book in the village.
Oxoniensia is published annually by the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society and contains articles on the latest research and findings on the archaeology, history and architecture of Oxford and Oxfordshire. The volumes are online – www.oxoniensia.org – the volumes from 1936-2019 are free to read but a subscription is needed to read from 2020 to the latest volume. One volume of particular interest is Voll. L11, 1987 which contains an article ‘Roman Roads South and East of Dorchester on Thames’ by FJ Malpas, which shows maps and discusses the Roman roads which passed through Warborough its environs.
Other parish records are available online. We have most of our parish registers from the start of registration in 1538, however the burial records from 1812-1879 are missing and have not been digitised. Our original records are held at the Oxford History Centre in the church of St Luke at Cowley in Oxford. However, the originals are not available for consultation, but they have been digitised and are available on www.ancestry.co.uk. Free access to the Ancestry site is available at the History Centre on their public computers and is also available in Oxfordshire libraries on their public computers. The Oxford History website is www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/leisure-and-culture/history/oxfordshire-history-centre where you can search their catalogue for other local records.
The census records for 1841-1921 are also available on the Ancestry website. The society has a photocopy of the original census of 1851. The census returns for England are available to search at The National Archives at Kew, London without charge and can be photocopied there.