Shelswell's toponym comes from Old English and suggests that the settlement may originally have been the well belonging to Scield, a Saxon settler.

[1] By the 12th century Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I, was Shelswell's feudal overlord.

[1] A new manor house southwest of the former village was built either early in the 18th century according to record or in 1699 according to a date-stone found in 1875.

[1] Shelswell had a parish church before the end of the 11th century, and its dedication to the Northumbrian Saint Ebbe reflects the Earl of Northumbria's feudal overlordship of the manor from 1093 until 1095.

[1] Late in the 20th century a Church of England benefice comprising Newton Purcell and nine other local parishes was established and named after Shelswell.

[1] In 1497 the husband of the lady of the manor evicted people, demolished two houses and enclosed 60 acres (24 ha) of land for arable farming.

[1] By 1528 another landowner had made further evictions and enclosures and in 1533 Brasenose College, Oxford bought a 90 acres (36 ha) farm in the parish.