Welcome to the new Parish Council website for Merton. On this site we will publish Council meeting information, latest news, Parish Council events and village information. Merton is a small parish village on the edge of the Otmoor and near the River Ray, we are approximately 5 miles south of Bicester and 11 miles north west of Oxford. The latest census recorded the population of the village as 424 people. Merton is recorded in the Domesday Book, when in 1086 the village was known as Meretone – meretone being the old english word for a hamlet or settlement near a lake. Merton has a manor house which dates back to just before the Norman conquest of England. The Parish Church was built in the 14th century, although the font is much older than the church, dating from the late 12th century. There are other historical buildings in the village, including a tithe barn which may have been built in the late 15th century, and the old school house where one of the earliest National Schools was established in 1814. The now closed pub, The Plough, is partly Tudor.