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Rousham is a village and civil parish beside the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire. The village is about west of Bicester and about north of Kidlington. The parish is bounded by the River Cherwell in the east, the A4260 main road between Oxford and Banbury in the west, partly by the B4030 in the north, and by field boundaries with Tackley parish in the south. The 2001 Census recorded the parish's population as 80. Rousham was founded early in the Anglo-Saxon era. Its Toponymy is derived from Old English meaning Hrothwulf's ham or farm.
The church building dates from the 12th century. The easternmost bay of the arcade for the south aisle was built in about 1180 and the bell tower was added early in the 13th century. Between 1296 and 1316 a chantry chapel was added to the north side of the nave. Slightly later the south aisle was extended the full length of the nave, a south chapel was included and a south porch was added. The arch to the south chapel is 14th century and all the windows of the south aisle are Decorated Gothic. In the 15th century a clerestory was added to the nave and a rood screen and rood loft were built across the nave and aisle. The chantry chapel was in disrepair by 1520 and demolished shortly after 1530. Later in the 16th century a large window was inserted in the north wall of the nave towards its western end. It and all the other windows in the north wall are Perpendicular Gothic. In 1867–68 the church building was restored, the chancel and south porch were rebuilt and the height of the chancel was increased.
In 1744 the wooden pulpit was built, and during the restoration of 1867–68 it was reduced in height. The were rebuilt in the 19th century but include some 17th and 18th century panelling. The tower has a Change ringing of six bells. Richard Keene of Woodstock cast five of them including the treble and tenor bells in 1675; Thomas II Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the fourth bell in 1825. Rousham Rectory was a large house, consisting of eight bays in 1634 and 11 bays in 1685. It was remodelled in 1804 and enlarged in 1873, when the present attic floor was added. The architect of the 1873 works was William Wilkinson of Oxford, whose commissions included several clergy houses in Oxfordshire. In 1921 the house was sold to the Cottrell-Dormers.
The Domesday Book records that by 1086 the parish had two , presumably on the River Cherwell. By 1222 there was only one mill, and this still existed in 1547. Its later history is not clear but it had gone by 1721. In 1636 Sir Robert Dormer, lord of the manor of Rousham, refused to pay ship money. During the English Civil War a Cavalier force plundered the house and village in 1644 and a detachment of Royalist cavalry occupied the house early in 1645. Most of Rousham parish was farmed under an open field system until the 18th century. There had been one small enclosure by 1601 and a second in 1645. The enclosure of the parish's remaining in 1775 was by agreement between the landowners without recourse to an Act of Parliament.
Clement Cottrell-Dormer established a parish school in about 1785. Between 1808 and 1818 it had between 22 and 25 pupils, but there is no record of it after 1834. In 1878 Clement Upton-Cottrell-Dormer established a new parish school in the building just south of the parish church. It opened with 35 pupils but this declined to 25 in 1889 and 16 in 1906. The school was closed in 1926 but its building is still recognisable as the schoolhouse, complete with Bell-cot on the western gable. Between 1845 and 1850 the Oxford and Rugby Railway was built, passing through the eastern margin of the parish beside the River Cherwell. In 1850 it opened Heyford railway station at Lower Heyford, north of Rousham village. The station is now part of the Cherwell Valley Line and is served by Great Western Railway trains.
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