Osney or Osney Island (; an earlier spelling of the name is Oseney) is a riverside community in the west of the city of Oxford, England. In modern times the name is applied to a community also known as Osney Town astride Botley Road, just west of the city's main railway station, on an island surrounded by the River Thames, Osney Ditch and another backwater connecting the Thames to Osney Ditch. Until the early 20th century the name was applied to the larger island of Oxford Castle and New Osney (between Castle Mill Stream and the main stream of the Thames) on which Osney Abbey and Osney Mill were established during the Middle Ages. The place plays a minor but significant role in The Miller's Tale in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. History The name "Osney" is Old English, and means either "Osa's Island" or "island in the Ouse": Ouzen Ait is a base form and Ouse is an Old English word for a (large) river. Until the early twentieth century the name was applied to the island formed by two streams of the River Thames immediately west of the centre of Oxford, Castle Mill Stream and the stream which is now the main channel of the river. To the north the island is bounded by a short channel between the River Thames and the Castle Mill Stream, the Sheepwash Channel, which separates it from Fiddler's Island and Cripley. Osney Abbey was founded on the south part of the island in 1129, and Rewley Abbey was founded in the north of the island in 1280. Osney Mill was established by Osney Abbey on the west side of the island. The lands of both abbeys passed to Christ Church following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The island formed part of St. Thomas's parish. In 1790 the mill stream feeding Osney Mill on the west side of the island became the main navigation channel of the river, when Osney Lock was opened. Until the beginning of the 19th century, only the side of the island east of St Thomas's Church was developed. In the nineteenth century the island changed significantly. The Great Western Railway built its line across the island from north to south in 1850, with new bridges across the Thames at the south end of the island, and across the Sheepwash Channel to the north. A new railway station