Any ideas on this Berkshire place name please?

[LizzieL]

Looking at an Ordnance Survey map for Shrivenham and surrounding area, There is a Lower Bourton a short distance to the north west of Bourton and the contours indicate that Bourton is higher than Lower Bourton, so it may have been referred to as Bourton on Hill. Part of the road between them is called the Hill.

http://www.bing.com/maps/#Y3A9NTIuMDg5NjAwfjAuNDQ3MjAwJmx2bD02JnN0eT1yJmVvPTAmcT1zaHJpdmVuaGFt

If you use above link it will take you to Bing maps for Shrivenham. The drop down in the top left - default is "road" - allows you to select Ordnance Survey, and then you can zoom in on Bourton.

[smudwhisk]

Thanks Lizzie, I think that's the most likely situation, although the contours on the OS map suggest it wasn't that much of a "hill", not compared to nearby Uffington anyway.

[LizzieL]

I expect the term Hill was just relative. Perhaps she was born in a house on the road now called The Hill.

[smudwhisk]

Quite possible.

[[Ray]]

Hi

Aren't the other birth places (Asthall) up "north" Oxon way (not far from Bourton o H)?

Doesn't what appears on the census document depend on what the Enumerator copied from his notes?
It may only be the Enumerator's mistake (or lack of knowledge) that Bourton o H was placed in the wrong county?


Ray

[Regorian]

There still is a road called 'The Hill' in Bourton. Vale of the White Horse was transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in 1974.

Oops, LizzieL already found 'The Hill' road.

[youngtug]

There was also Swan Hill in Bourton but none of the hills in Bourton are very high.

[smudwhisk]

Hi

Aren't the other birth places (Asthall) up "north" Oxon way (not far from Bourton o H)?

Doesn't what appears on the census document depend on what the Enumerator copied from his notes?
It may only be the Enumerator's mistake (or lack of knowledge) that Bourton o H was placed in the wrong county?


Ray

Asthall is Witney Registration District, so its closer to Berkshire than Bourton on the Hill, Gloucestershire.  In any case, at least one of their older children was born in Curbridge.  I'm currently struggling to interpret the married name of one of their other daughters (from James Hart's Will) who I think is older as my friend hadn't found a baptism for her in Asthall so she may also have been born in either Brize Norton or Curbridge or a similar area.

There was also Swan Hill in Bourton but none of the hills in Bourton are very high.

No I was thinking that when I looked at the O/S map that LizzieL directed me to.  Where I live in southwest Birmingham is twice as high above sea level.

Thanks to Regorian and LizzieL for "the Hill" in Bourton, I tend to think that's probably where the name came from.  All evidence I've found so far tends to suggest the 1794 marriage in Brize Norton and the corresponding baptism of a Sarah Titchnor in Shrivenham is the correct person but I shall have a bit more of a dig around to see if I can confirm beyond any doubt.  The family don't seem to have any association with the Moreton in Marsh area and more specifically Bourton on the Hill, Gloucestershire.

[youngtug]

Bourton, and Shrivenham are at the foot of the Downs. The Wilts & Berks canal and the Railway run through the parish of Bourton, if you have ever travelled from London to Swindon / Bristol by train then you would have passed about half a mile from the village centre of Bourton.
 I was born and grew up about 3 miles from Bourton and my grandmother was born there, I have never heard it referred to has Bourton on the hill. It may have been in the past, or by some people but I am afraid I have never come across it.