Cuddesdon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Cuddesdon | |
| Population | c. 500 |
|---|---|
| Parish | Cuddesdon |
| Region | South East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | OXFORD |
| Postcode district | OX44 |
| Dialling code | 01865 |
| Police | |
| Fire | |
| Ambulance | |
| European Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | Henley |
| List of places: UK • England • | |
Cuddesdon is a pre-Domesday village located in the hundred of Bullingdon, within the county of Oxfordshire in England.
The village has a population of approximately 430, with an additional 70 in the orbital hamlets of Denton and Chippinghust (2001 census). It takes its name from the Anglo-Saxon "Cudde's Dune" (lit. Cudde's Hill, or the 'Hill of Cuthwine').
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[edit] History
The village used to be a classic Anglo-Saxon linear settlement along what is now know as the high street, but since nineteenth century ecclesiastical developments to the north of the village and twentieth-century residential developments (principally Bishop's Wood and Parkside), it has become a nuclear settlement centred on The Green.
Over the past fifty years, many facilities and businesses in Cuddesdon, as in similar villages up and down the country, have closed down and mostly been converted into housing for an increasingly commuter population. These include the petrol station, the shop, the school, the mill, the second public house and various farm buildings. Thus the village has turned from a compact community into what is largely a dormitory village.
[edit] Site
The southern boundary of the parish is formed by the River Thame and the eastern by Cuddesdon Brook which flows from Coombe Wood, to the north of the village, down to the Thame. The village is sited on a hill that overlooks southern Oxfordshire, northern Berkshire, the Aylesbury Vale in central Buckinghamshire, and a slither of west Bedfordshire. There are views of both the Chiltern Hills and the North Wessex Downs AONB stretching from Ivinghoe Beacon in the east to Didcot Power Station in the west.
[edit] The Village Today
There is a free monthly parish newsletter and a reasonably active social life in the village, with annual fireworks, a village fete and various groups which meet regularly such as the film club. Most social activities are organised or co-ordinated by the Parish Council or its subsidiaries.
The Parish Church of All Saints, the Bat and Ball inn, the Village Hall, Ripon College Cuddesdon, and the farms are all still economically active. There has also been much talk of resurrecting a village shop, though a solution is as yet unforthcoming.
In November 2007 a public consultation was held regarding the proposed Parish Plan - a strategic document that promises to chart the hopes of the village for twenty years to come.
[edit] Ecclesiastical Influence
Like most other English villages, Cuddesdon has a parish church; the Church of All Saints. Unlike any other village however, it also is home to an Anglican theological college and, until the 1960s, was the site of the Ecclesiastical Palace of the Bishop of the diocese of Oxford, Cuddesdon Palace.
The college, Ripon College Cuddesdon, is the only rural Anglican seminary in the world. The Palace is now a private residence.
Due to the strength and extent of both past and present church connections, the village is also known as the "Holy Hill". It has been suggested that in Cuddesdon 'the presence of the Church has been more strongly felt than perhaps anywhere else in England'[1].
Cuddesdon lends its name to the Aston & Cuddesdon Deanery area of the Oxford Diocese.
[edit] Baron of Cuddesdon
After his retirement in 1991, Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury and also a former vicar of Cuddesdon and college principal, took the title Baron Runcie of Cuddesdon.
[edit] References
- ^ God's Holy Hill (2004) Mark Chapman, The Wychwood Press
