Boarstall is a village and civil parish in the Buckinghamshire district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the Aylesbury Vale area about west of Aylesbury. The parish is on the county boundary with Oxfordshire and the village is about southeast of the Oxfordshire market town of Bicester.
Etymology
The name Boarstall is first attested in 1158–59 as Burchestala. This derives from the Old English words ("fortification, town") and ("settlement, location, site"). Thus it once meant "site of the fort".
The parish also contains Panshill Farm, whose name is first attested in the thirteenth century in the forms Pansehale, Pauncehale, Pauncehaye, and Paunsehale. The name is noted as a likely example of an etymologically-Brittonic English place-name. It is thought to derive from the words that survive in modern Welsh as ("head, end, top, peak") and ("wood").
History
According to legend King Edward the Confessor gave some land to one of his men in return for slaying a wild boar that had infested the nearby Bernwood Forest. The man built himself a mansion on this land and called it "Boar-stall" (Old English for 'Boar House') in memory of the slain beast. The man, known as Neil, was also given a horn from the dead beast, and the legend says that whoever shall possess the horn shall be the lord of the manor of Boarstall.
It is certainly the case from manorial records of 1265 that the owner of the manor of Boarstall was the ceremonial keeper of the Bernwood Forest, suggesting a link with the earlier legend. Given the proximity of Boarstall to the king's palace at Brill it would appear that this legend certainly has some basis in fact.