A series of irregular late Iron Age to early Roman enclosures in the parish are known from cropmarks.

[4] The toponym has evolved from Erdington in Old English to Eyrynten in 1495–96, Yardington in the 16th century but also Yarnton from 1517.

[5] Most of the land at Yarnton was granted to Eynsham Abbey in 1005 but Remigius de Fécamp, a supporter of William the Conqueror, took it during the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

In the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 Rewley Abbey was dissolved and King Henry VIII sold Yarnton to his physician, George Owen.

Sir Thomas Spencer had the present manor house, a large Jacobean country mansion, built in 1611.

In 1695, a decade after his death, most of the manor's land was sold to Sir Robert Dashwood, who removed most of the stone of the house to build his own home at Kirtlington Park.

[5] In 1897 the new owner, HR Franklin, engaged the Gothic revival architect Thomas Garner who restored the remaining part of the house.

[8] In the 1930s the property belonged to George Alfred Kolkhorst, Reader in Spanish at Oxford University.

[7] The house spent a number of years as the international study centre of the Oxford Royale Academy,[9] but in the summer of 2021, the Manor sold at a price of £9 million to The Lanier Theological Education Foundation.

[5] The Norman building from that period was completely rebuilt in the 13th century in the Early English Gothic style.

[15] Other paintings may survive under the current limewash, including what may be a large Saint Christopher over the north doorway.

[15] Late in the 18th century Alderman William Fletcher of Oxford, who was born in Yarnton, gave St Bartholomew's six alabaster reliefs carved by a Nottingham sculptor in the 15th century and said to have been found during excavations near St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

There had been sporadic attempts at educating the children of Yarnton since the 1580s, but none seems to have produced a school that endured and became established enough to have its own building.

[22] Despite its late Georgian date it is a neo-Tudor building,[22] in keeping with both the character of Yarnton village and William Fletcher's antiquarian tastes.

The two lines meet at Wolvercote Junction about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the village.

[24] In 1962 British Railways closed Yarnton station and withdrew passenger services between Oxford and Witney.

[34] Woodland in the parish is now limited to lands around Yarnton Manor and the southwest side of the village, comprising mainly Spring Hill bordering the Duke of Marlborough's Bladon and Begbroke hunting forest.

Pixey and Yarnton Meads were declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest for their flora and fauna in 1955.