Bainton, Oxfordshire

Bainton is a hamlet comprising a cluster of farms in the civil parish of Stoke Lyne, about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the centre of Bicester.

History

The toponym comes from the Old English for "Bada's farm".^[1]

The Domesday Book records that in 1086 Ghilo de Picquigny held the manor of Bainton.^[1]

In 1279 Bainton had 17 households.^[1] In 1316 18 villagers were assessed to pay tax but by 1520 the figure had fallen to five.^[1] By the 1950s Bainton comprised only four farmhouses and a cottage.^[1]

In 1530 the manor was sold to Edward Peckham, cofferer to Henry VIII and John Williams, later 1st Baron Williams de Thame.^[1] In 1613 Edward Ewer of Bucknell sold the manor to Sir William Cope, 2nd Baronet of Hanwell for £5,300.^[1] A legal dispute between them ensued, which ended with Ewer recovering the manor in 1628.^[1] The Ewer family could not afford to keep Bainton, and sold the manor again in 1637.^[1]

By the middle of the 17th century Bainton had been converted from arable farming to pasture.^[1] This required less labour so the hamlet became depopulated.^[1]

Bainton Manor Farm is a coursed rubblestone house.^[1] It was constructed in either the latter part of the 16th or earlier part of the 17th century,^[1] during the Great Rebuilding of England. It was originally the manor house.^[1] In 1783 John Warde, founder and first Master of the Bicester Hunt,^[2] was using it as a hunting-box, Joseph Bullock of Caversfield had bought the manor and the two men together built stables and kennels there.^[1] 330 yards (300 m) northwest of the hamlet an obelisk marks the grave of a favourite foxhound.^[3]

References

Sources

• Lobel, Mary D, ed (1959). A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 6. Victoria County History. pp. 312–323. 
• Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 789. ISBN 0 14 071045 0.