Now the truth is that the 20th century influence on this village is so strong that the bits of it that would normally interest us like the church, the Jacobean manor house, and yes, of course, the pub, are almost obliterated. But the key word is almost.

The village started its life huddled in the bottom of the steepest part of the valley, with a triangular village green surrounded with cottages, a meeting hall, a pub, a blacksmith and a school with the manor house looking down from above. You can still see the pattern of the village streets in the roads that run through the village today. It was just another of those spontaneous settlements on a convenient river crossing that sprung up in a clearing of the Wychwood Forest. Cottage industries of glove-making, a bit of weaving and a pretty much self-sufficient farming system made for a successful, albeit tiny community.

The church is, by local standards, modern. It was built in the early 1840s in the gothic revival style, with an ornate chancel added in 1905. There must have been an expectation of a change in the village as the church is much bigger than the original village would have needed, and the date seems to bear that out. In the late 1840s and early 50s the railway came to Finstock and, along with it, the industrial revolution. From that moment Finstock was destined to expand. In all directions up the valley sides and along the contours of the hills, residential development grew, and went on growing into the 20th and 21st centuries. The village is now a very substantial settlement. The church is beautifully kept. The graveyard is mown, the doors are always open for curious people like me to look at and in the churchyard is a classical mausoleum to Sir Arthur Du Cross, built by Spencer Chadwick of London.