[2] Ambrosden is about 3 miles (5 km) southeast of Bicester (the nearest railway station), connected by the A41 road.

This interpretation, however, has been rejected by historians who believe the toponym was derived not from Ambrosius, but from the Old English for "Ambre's hill".

When the scholar and antiquarian White Kennett was Vicar of Ambrosden (from 1685 to 1708), ancient Danish remains were found in the parish.

[2] During the reign of King Edward the Confessor a lady called Elviva (probably a Latin rendering of the Old English name Ælfgifu), held the manor of Ambrosden.

Hugh's nephew Roger II d'Ivry inherited Ambrosden and by 1194 it was part of the Honour of St. Valery.

Ambrosden thus passed to Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall, who in 1288 gave the manor to Ashridge Priory of the Augustinian order of the Brothers of Penitence.

Their grandson Francis Mildmay was a Royalist in the English Civil War, so in 1648 Parliament sequestered his estates.

During the Commonwealth of England, the Treason Trustees twice sold Ambrosden to wealthy Londoners: to John Warre in 1653 and to William Drax and Alexander Jackson in 1657.

Francis Mildmay recovered Ambrosden but in 1658 mortgaged it to Sir James Drax, also of London and in 1660 sold 100 acres (40 hectares) of the estate to various yeoman farmers.

During the English Civil War, the area was occupied in June 1643, when part of the King's forces were at Bicester and guarded Blackthorn Bridge.

of Woodeaton, had a large courtyard entered through two elegant gates with a cross fixed at the northern part.

The main church building comprised:[7] ... an embattled tower of two stories, with a vane at each angle; a nave, a chancel, and a south aisle; the latter crowned with a parapet, pierced with trefoils and supported by three handsome buttresses, ornamented with niches, once containing statues of saints.The south porch leads to an aisle that is lit by four two-light windows.

[8] The ecclesiastical parish of Ambrosden is now part of the Ray Valley Benefice,[10] and St Mary's also serves as the British Army garrison chapel.

[2] During his incumbency, Kennett became tutor and vice-principal at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and published a number of scholarly works.

Kennett was also Rector of St Botolph's Aldgate in London from 1700, Archdeacon of Huntingdon from 1701 and Dean of Peterborough from 1707.

The road includes a completely straight stretch of about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) and generally runs across level ground, although its course undulates at regular intervals, intended to use gravity to help draught animals pull vehicles.

[2][12] The coal was landed at Arncott Bridge and delivered thence by wheelbarrows to Sir Edward Turner, 2nd Baronet at Ambrosden House.

In 1829 Jackson's Oxford Journal complained that a race meeting in the park attracted a thousand "idlers" characterized by "dullness and stupidity" and was marred by "brutal and disgraceful fighting" despite the presence of several members of the gentry.

[5] In 1952 the primary school had an attendance of 194 pupils, including children from the War Department housing estate.

The Buckinghamshire Railway's Oxford and Bletchley line was built through the northwest corner of the parish and opened in 1851.

[2] There are three types of house, all designed by the architect R. Potter of Salisbury, all built of brick and roofed with tiles, and many sited around a green.

The British Army, which has personnel at St. George's Barracks in nearby Arncott, has been in the village since the Second World War.

Route 29 links the village to Bicester and HM Prison Bullingdon and provides a limited service to Arncott.

Route H5 links the village to Bicester, and also to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington via Islip and Barton.