Dorton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dorton (or Dourton) is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located near the border with Oxfordshire, about six miles north of Thame.

The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'farm at a narrow pass'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was recorded as Dortone.

Dorton House is a Grade 1 listed Jacobean mansion to the south of the village, now a preparatory school, Ashfold School.

Originally a chapel of ease to nearby Chilton it has been recognised as a parish in its own right since at least 1590. However it is still quite small in size. The parish church is dedicated to St John the Evangelist.

Dorton Spa, a chalybeate spring, is to the north of the village in Spa Wood, a large pump room and health spa was opened in the mid-nineteenth century; but due to lack of Royal patronage (as in Royal Leamington Spa and Royal Tunbridge Wells) Dorton Spa declined and little exists of it now. In 1912, the railway was built and Dorton Halt was built, providing access to London and Birmingham; it closed in 1963.

Dorton was put on the sporting map in the 1960s and 1970s with the tug-of-war team the Dorton Dons.