Place:Adderbury, Oxfordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Adderbury is a village and civil parish about 3 miles (5 km) south of Banbury in northern Oxfordshire, England. The village is formed of two parts, West Adderbury and East Adderbury, each with its own village green and its own manor house. The parish also includes the hamlet of Twyford which is on the main road through the village.

East and West Adderbury are separated by Sor Brook, a tributary of the River Cherwell. Sor Brook rises at Ratley and Upton in Warwickshire and joins the Cherwell between Adderbury and Aynho, Northamptonshire.

The 2011 UK census recorded the parish's population as 2,819.

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin is in East Adderbury. St Mary's is one of the largest parish churches in Oxfordshire and architecturally one of the most important. Barford St. John and Bodicote were chapelries in the ancient parish of Adderbury and Milton (near Adderbury) was a hamlet.

The former West Adderbury Friends meeting house was built in 1675. Adderbury's Quaker community included a number of clockmakers. Richard Gilkes (1715–87) was a son of Thomas Gilkes of Sibford Gower. Richard was apprenticed to his father and started his own business in Adderbury East in about 1736. Gilkes was a prolific clockmaker until the 1770s and maintained the turret clock of St Mary the Virgin parish church from 1747 until 1786.

Joseph Williams (1762–1835) lived in Adderbury East and traded from 1788. Williams made longcase clocks and succeeded Richard Gilkes in the maintenance of the parish church clock, which he did from 1788 until 1827. His son William Williams (1793–1862) assisted him and took over the business on his father's death in 1835. He made longcase clocks and maintained the parish church clock from 1828 until 1839. (Sources in Wikipedia)

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, volume 9, chapter on Adderbury.
• Oxfordshire History Centre, St Luke's Church, Temple Road, Oxford, OX4 2HT
• Oxfordshire FHS covers the whole county. The Family History Society provides an interactive map to assist in locating individual parishes and also relates the society's progress in transcribing parish registers and gravestone information for that particular parish. Browse the website to see what else the society can provide.
• Further information from GENUKI
• Ordnance Survey map of Oxfordshire 1900 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Ordnance Survey map of Oxfordshire 1944 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, particularly helpful in large towns and cities.