The Shirburn Ballads is the name given to an early 17th-century manuscript collection of Elizabethan to early Stuart-era ballads that formerly resided in the collection of the Earls of Macclesfield in the library at Shirburn Castle. As per the Ballad Index compiled by W.B. Olsen, it is one of a number of significant sources for ballads of that period. According to the relevant entry in the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700, the main scribe may have been Edwarde Hull, whose name appears on leaf 155. It is believed that since the current set of leaves is numbered from 98 onwards, a further initial 97 leaves were once present but were lost prior to the set's binding in 1860. The collection is mainly known to scholars via an edited version that was published by the Reverend Andrew Clark in 1907. Most or all of the included ballads derive from broadside ballad sources which were recorded as published for copyright purposes in relevant 16th-century sources, and include a subset for which the original broadside copy has not survived. Since 2007, the original work is now in the collection of the British Library.

Shirburn Castle is a Grade I listed, moated castle located at the village of Shirburn, near Watlington, Oxfordshire. Originally constructed in the fourteenth century, it was renovated and remodelled in the Georgian era by Thomas Parker, the first Earl of Macclesfield who made it his family seat, and altered further in the early nineteenth century. The Earls of Macclesfield remained in residence until 2004, and the castle is still (2022) owned by the Macclesfield family company. It formerly contained an important, early eighteenth century library which, along with valuable paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts including furniture, remained in the ownership of the 9th Earl and were largely dispersed at auction following his departure from the property; notable among these items were George Stubbs's 1768 painting "Brood Mares and Foals", a record setter for the artist at auction in 2010, the Macclesfield Psalter, numerous rare and valuable books, and personal correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton.