Asthall or Asthal is a village and civil parish on the River Windrush in Oxfordshire, about west of Witney. It includes the hamlets of Asthall Leigh, Field Assarts, Stonelands, Worsham and part of Fordwells. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 252. Asthall village is just south of the River Windrush, which also forms the south-eastern part of its boundary. The remainder of the parish including all of its hamlets lie north of the river. A minor road through Fordwells forms most of the parish's northern boundary. Most of the remainder of the parish's boundary is formed by field boundaries. Name The name Asthall derives from the Old English words ēast 'east' + healh 'corner, nook', attested in the early 11th century as East Heolon. Archaeology On Leigh Hale Plain there are two barrows that may date from the Bronze Age. The course of Akeman Street Roman Road that linked Watling Street with Fosse Way passes through the parish just south of the village and through the middle of Windrush Farm. The road crossed the Windrush about east of the village. Traces of a Roman settlement have been found on both sides of the course of the road on low-lying land between Windrush Farm and the site of the Roman river crossing. It was occupied from the middle of the first century AD to the latter part of the fourth century. Artefacts recovered include a bronze figurine of a bird seizing a hare. south of the village, beside the main Witney – Burford road (now part of the A40 trunk road) is an early 7th century Saxon burial mound, Asthall barrow, that contained the cremated remains of a man. Objects from the barrow are now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Wychwood Forest The parish is elongated north-eastwards. A record of 1300 states that the manor of Asthall was extended into Wychwood Forest after 1154. The name of Field Assarts in the north-east of the parish refers to assarting: the medieval process of clearing any uncultivated land to convert it to agriculture. The north-eastern parts of Asthall parish remained purlieus of the Wychwood until it was disafforested in 1857. Parish church The Church of England parish church of Saint Nicholas was enlarged in about 1160, when the north aisle and north transept were added to an earlier church. The north transept arch and the arcade between the nave and