CLAYDON, a chapelry in that part of the parish of
CROPREDY which is in the hundred of BANBURY, county
of OXFORD, 6 miles (N.) from Banbury, containing
252 inhabitants. The village is the most northern in
the county; a small spring which rises in it has the
peculiarity of emitting the largest quantity of water in
the driest weather. The inhabitants enjoy the privilege
of sending fifteen children to the free school at Farnborough,
in Warwickshire. Here are found the pyrites
aureus, or golden fire-stone; also the asteria, or starstone,
called by Gesner " sigillum stella," from its use in
sealing: in splitting some of these, the figure of a rose
is plainly discernible in the centre.