The village toponym is derived from the Old English for 'Ylla's boundary', referring to the ancient boundary with Oxfordshire.[citation needed] The Domesday Book of 1086 records the village as Imere.[3]
Parish church
The nave of the Church of England parish church of Saint Peter dates from the 12th century.[3] In the 14th century the chancel was rebuilt and a south transept was added to the nave.[3] In the 16th century the timber-framed and weatherboarded bellcote was added to the west end of the building. In 1662 the south transept was demolished.[3] The building was restored in 1859–60 under the direction of the Oxford Diocesan architect, G.E. Street.[4]
The bellcote has three bells, all of them cast by bellfounders from Reading, Berkshire. The tenor was cast in about 1500, probably by William Hasylwood.[3] William Knight cast the second bell in 1568 and Henry Knight cast the treble in 1618.[3]
In 1968, a scene from Albert R. Broccoli's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed along the railway line in which the Baron Bomburst's spies capture the wrong car with Lord Scrumptious inside. [6]