Buckland, Oxfordshire

Buckland is a village and civil parish about 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Faringdon^[2] in the Vale of White Horse District. Buckland was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.

Character and geography

Buckland is an estate village,^[3] created to house those working at Buckland House.^[4]

The River Thames forms the northern boundary of the parish, just over 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village. The parish church of St. Mary the Virgin is at grid reference SU342982 and Buckland House at grid reference SU338981.^[4]

The soil of Buckland is a rich, sandy loam with the subsoil consisting of Corallian Beds and Oxford Clay.^[5]

History

Early spellings of Buckland included:

• Boclande (10th century)^[6]
• Bocheland (11th century)
• Bochelanda (12th century)
• Boclonde, Bokeland, Bikeland (13th century)^[5]

The history of Buckland is inextricably linked with that of the manor of Buckland and its owners:

• The earliest known written record of Buckland is from AD 957 in a charter when King Edgar the Peaceful granted Duke Ælfheah ten hides^[6] which covered the area of Buckland.
• During the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), Buckland was held by Ulvric Chenp.^[5]
• It is listed in the Domesday Book as part of the lands of Bishop Osbern of Gamesfel Hundret (known as Gainfield today) in 1086.^[6] However, his right was not established and the case had already been sent before the king, William the Conqueror. The estate was assessed as eight hides and consisted of a mill, four fisheries and a dairy farm producing 10 wheys of cheese a year. Its value was given as £8.^[5]
• Hugh de Buckland is recorded as the next owner and occupier of the land as well as another estate in Buckland.^[5][7]
• At the end of the twelfth century, William de Buckland (probably the great-grandson of Hugh de Buckland) had ownership of the land. He died about 1215.^[5]
• William de Buckland left three daughters as his heirs - Maud Davranches, Hawise de Boville and Joan de Ferrers. When he died, the estate went to Maud, wife of William Davranches.^[5]
• In 1230 Maud's husband died. She married Hamo de Crevequer who accordingly attained ownership of the estate. In 1245, they gave the manor to their daughter Agnes and any future heirs.^[5]
• When Hamo de Crevequer died in 1262 leaving Maud and their daughters   Agnes, Elenanor, Isabel and Iseult. Buckland was assigned to Iseult, the wife of Nicholas de Lenham.^[5]
• Iseult died shortly after her father's death. She and Nicholas left a son, John, aged 12. In 1263, wardship of Buckland was given to Eubold de Montibus who in turn have the manor to Philip Bassett until John came of age. In 1267 John de Lenham took pessession of the manor.^[5]
• Prior to 1545, Buckland was held by the De La Poles, Dukes of Suffolk.^[8]
• In 1545 the manor of Buckland passed to the Yate family.^[8]
• In 1690 it was passed by marriage to the Throckmortons of Coughton Court in Warwickshire. They went on to build much of the current estate.^[9]
• In the mid 1750s, Sir Robert Throckmorton had a new house built, Buckland House. The old manor house became his stables.

For the later history of the manor, see Buckland House.

Notable buildings

Buckland House

Buckland House is a large Georgian stately home and the manor house of Buckland. It is a masterpiece of Palladian architecture erected by John Wood, the Younger for Sir Robert Throckmorton in 1757.^[7]

Other manor houses

Buckland Manor House was the manor house of Buckland until Buckland House was built in 1757 and it was converted into stables.^[5] However, in the mid-20th century, the building again became a private house. It was built late in the 16th century and is a two storey eastward facing rectangular block, refaced in Georgian Gothic Revival style.

Barcote Manor or Park is a Tudor Revival house built in 1876 for Lady Theodora Guest. She sold it to the millionaire, William West, Director of the Great Western Railway, in 1881. It later became a boarding school, the Barcote School of Coaching, and has now been converted into flats.^[10] A previous building on the site was the home of the Holcott family from 1230 to 1586.^[5]

Carswell House is a gabled building originally built by John Southby, both JP and MP for Berkshire, in the early 17th century. Major additions were added in the Victorian period. The Southbys lived on the site from 1584 to 1892.^[5]

Churches

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin is largely a 12th century building, with 13th century chancel, tower and transepts and some minor Victorian additions. The main north and south nave doors are unusual in having a matching pair of Norman arches. In the chancel is a triangular locker containg the heart-burial (1575) of William Holcott of Barcote Manor. He was a staunch Protestant who only just avoided being burnt at the stake by Mary Tudor. After the Reformation, he became a zealous lay preacher, often gracing the pulpit in his "velvet bonnet and damask gown...sometimes with a gold chain". There is a number of 14th century tomb recesses, an inscribed slab with a floriated cross to Dame Felice la Blonde and a number of monuments to the Yates of Buckland Manor, including the brass of John Yate (1578). The church also houses a 14th century octagonal font, a late 12th century Crusader Chest, hatchments to the Throckmortons and bells dating back to 1636. The magnificent Barcote Chapel is famed for its decorative mosaic work (1890–92) to the memory of Clara Jane, wife of William West, of Barcote Manor.^[5]

Saint George's Roman Catholic Church is Victorian, built in a 14th century style for the Throckmortons of Buckland House. It consists of a chancel, north chapel, nave, south porch and western bellcote.^[5]

Others

• Old post office - Buckland previously had a post office reporting to Faringdon.^[2] A photograph sold by a commercial web site shows the post office in existence in 1965.^[11] Today, the building is used as a private residence known as the Old Post House.^[12]

• Draper's shop - The former Draper's shop, built in the 18th century, is now a house known as Hedges.^[13]

• Buckland School - In 1793 Henry Southby of Carswell House founded a free school for boys and girls in Buckland. Others helped provided additional funds to the school and in 1868 it had an income of £60 per annum, £40 from Henry Southby and £20 from other charities.^[8]

• Lamb Inn - The main building of The Lamb Inn dates from the 17th^[14] or 18th^[15] century although the restaurant was added towards the end of the twentieth century.^[14] As of 2008, the Lamb Inn is owned by Peta and Paul Barnard who previously owned The Plough at Clanfield (the winner of a Michelin star).^[14]

• Almshouse - In 1240 an almshouse was founded and stood in a place now called Warnfords.^[5]

Statistics

19th and 20th century

Various sources have been collated by the University of Portsmouth and others to give an insight into Buckland in the 19th and 20th centuries. The information quoted is for the civil parish of Buckland as defined at each time period.

The earliest published figure for the population of Buckland is from 1801 (although it is recorded in the 1851 census) at 727 people. The population steadily increased and by 1851, there are 987 people living in Buckland. From here is begins a steady decline and after a further 50 years in 1901, the Buckland population is down to 665 people. It varies a little over the next fifty years but by 1951 is down to 636 people. By 1971, 597 people are recorded in Buckland^[16] compared to the 553 recorded in the 2001 census.

In a census taken in 1831, 70.7% of the male Buckland population over 20 were working as labourers and servants. 13.3% of people were small farmers, master and skilled workers. 10.8% were employers and professionals.^[17] A more detailed breakdown shows that 54.4% of people were employed as agricultural labourers, 12.9% in retail and handicrafts as well as 8.8% as servants.^[18] (Base 249 males aged 20+)

21st century

The United Kingdom Census 2001 recorded 553 people in Buckland civil parish, of whom 292 lived in the village itself.

Literature

In 1774 Henry James Pye, Poet Laureate to George III, wrote the poem Faringdon Hill. Part of it refers to Buckland:

See Buckland here her lovely scenes display,
which rude erewhile in rich disorder lay
til Taste and Genius with corrective hand
spread Culture's nicest vesture o'er the land,
and called each latent beauty to the fight;
clothed the declining slopes with pendant wood,
and o'er the sedge grown meadows poured the floor.^[6]

References

Sources and further reading

• Hamilton, N.E.S., ed (1868). The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland. London: J.S. Virtue. http://www.brazell.net/genuki/BRK/Buckland/. 
• Page, W.H.; Ditchfield, P.H., eds (1924). A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 4. Victoria County History. pp. 453–460. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 103–106. 
• Wilson, John Marius (1870-72). Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales. Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/gaztext_page.jsp?u_id=10201548&c_id=10001043. 
• Wright, Andrew S.N. (1996) [1966]. The History of Buckland in the County of Berkshire. Oxford: Holywell Press. 

External links

• The Church of St.Mary The Virgin The United Benefice of Cherbury with Gainfield
• The Lamb At Buckland
• The Dovecote