AYNHO, a village and a parish in Brackley district, Northampton. The village stands on the Roman Port way, near the Oxford and Birmingham railway, the Oxford canal, and the river Cherwell, 6 miles SE by S of Banbury; and it has a station on the railway, and a post office under Banbury. It was once a market-town; and it had anciently an hospital, for the accommodation of travellers, founded by the Fitz-Richards in the time of Henry II., and eventually given to Magdalene college, Oxford. A spring, called the Town well, runs from it to the Cherwell; and traces exist at its E end of the Roman Portway. The parish comprises 2,330 acres. Real property, £4,724. Pop., 595. Houses, 131. The property is not much divided. Aynho Park, adjacent to the village, the seat of W.Cartwright, Esq., is a prominent feature, and contains a good collection of pictures. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £500.* Patron, W.Cartwright, Esq. The church was restored in 1864. There are an endowed school with £20 a year, a national school, and charities £179. Robert Wild, a poet and satirist, was rector in the time of the Commonwealth, and ejected from it in 1662. Shakerley Marmion, the dramatist, and Sir Ralph Winwood, the statesman, were natives.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))