South Moreton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| South Moreton | |
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| OS grid reference | |
|---|---|
| Parish | South Moreton |
| District | South Oxfordshire |
| Shire county | Oxfordshire |
| Region | South East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | DIDCOT |
| Postcode district | OX11 |
| Dial code | 01235 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| UK Parliament | Wantage |
| European Parliament | South East England |
| List of places: UK • England • Oxfordshire | |
South Moreton is a village and civil parish, about three miles east of Didcot, in the English county of Oxfordshire (formerly in Berkshire).
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[edit] Character
Of the four basic ingredients for a successful village, South Moreton boasts a public house, both church and chapel, (unusually) a school, but not a shop. There are one or two large houses on the High Street, some newer houses at the east of the village, modern social housing to the West, and some cottages in between, many thatched.
[edit] Amenities
The Crown public house, on High Street, was the last to be rebuilt by Wadworth of Devizes before the statutory limits on breweries owning public houses. It competes with two neighbouring up-market pubs, The Chequers in Aston Tirrold, and The Bear in North Moreton, each a mile away in opposite directions.
The Church of England parish church, after the abrupt departure of the final rector, is now administered in a team ministry extending across six local parishes: it boasts an arguably Saxon doorway, and stands by some ancient earthworks by a ford at the outskirts of the village. The Strict Baptist Chapel has a significant local history and is very central. Its conspicuously smartly dressed congregation walks about the High Street between the services every Sunday.
South Moreton School , also on High Street, is a successful small County Primary School which has been run for very many years by the same headmaster, Mr Keith Eaton, a Manxman who is also the chairman of the parish council (not to be confused with the parochial church council). Many children nowadays arrive from the neighbouring villages by car, creating regular traffic jams in the village during termtime.
The Post-office/shop was ruined by the opening of a large supermarket, only an hour's walk away. In the absence of any material public transport, neither that nor the cycle path are of much use to the village's elderly or infirm residents, who can only collect their pensions from a travelling post office in The Crown. South Moreton has perforce become a commuter village.
[edit] History
'Moretune' in the Domesday book is ambiguous, but four of the five manor houses are identifiable: (1) Saunderville is still known as 'The Manor', and is a delightful moated manor house with horses grazing in the railed paddocks, sadly encroached upon by the railway; (2) Huse or Bray is a recently renovated low building nearby, again with a paddock in front of it; (3) the only trace of Adresham is the grassy terrace upon which it once stood - there is an unhappily enlarged bungalow on the site; (4) Fulscot is half a mile west of the village, and is still a self-contained manor farm community. The largest house in South Moreton is none of these, but The Hall, very close to the Huse and the Manor.
Much Victorian history of the village is recorded in 'The Rector's Book', handwritten around 1905 from memories stretching back to 1845, and of which transcripts are available in the Oxfordshire Public Libraries. When the Great Western railway was being built, many of the cottages provided for the navvies as inns, and were more or less disordely. Blotting paper was invented in South Moreton, in a mill commemorated by Paper Mill Lane. The Victorian villagers who enjoyed many shops, inns and businesses such as the mill, baker's and harness-maker's, would be shocked to learn that the village of Didcot, now swollen with housing estates, is advancing on their little village across the fields, like Burnham Woods coming to Dunsinane.
A vigorous campaign against the further expansion of Didcot to the east was successful in 2003, but in truth it seems inevitable that North and South Moreton, with their thatched cottages and village scandals, separate churches and councils, and their fierce independence from each other, will all have been swallowed up within another fifty years.
