Taynton is a village and civil parish about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) northwest of Burford in West Oxfordshire.

[1] In 1059, King Edward the Confessor granted the manor of Taynton to the Abbey of Saint Denis near Paris.

[9] The parish of St John the Evangelist is now part of the Benefice of Burford, Fulbrook, Taynton, Asthall, Swinbrook, and Widford.

[17] The original statues around the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford (carved in the 17th century and since replaced) were Taynton stone.

[16] "Rally Quarr", almost 2 miles (3 km) north of the village, is a corruption of "Railway Quarry".

[19] It was worked in 1846–52 for stone to build bridges in the Windrush Valley for the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway.

[19][20] Taynton stone was used in Oxford to widen Magdalen Bridge over the River Cherwell in 1882[21] and to build the New Bodleian Library in 1937–39.

[15] However, when Eton College was being built in the 15th century, navigation on the Upper Thames was so bad that stone was taken overland 40 miles (64 km) to river wharves at Henley-on-Thames.

[17] In the 17th and 18th centuries the river was sometimes navigable upstream from Eynsham, so barges loaded the stone at Radcot, 12 miles (19 km) from Taynton.

In the 17th century Robert Plot recorded that Sir Compton Reade had a stone mash tun made at Taynton that measured 6+3⁄8×3+3⁄8×4+1⁄2 feet (1.9×1.0×1.4 m) and held about 65 bushels[19] (about 2,400 litres).