Adwell

Adwell

St. Mary's parish church
Adwell
 Adwell shown within Oxfordshire
Population 27 (2001 census)[1]
OS grid referenceSU6999
Civil parishAdwell
DistrictSouth Oxfordshire
Shire countyOxfordshire
RegionSouth East
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Postcode district OX9
Dialling code 01844
Police Thames Valley
Fire Oxfordshire
Ambulance South Central
EU Parliament South East England
UK ParliamentHenley
WebsiteAdwell Parish Meeting
List of places
UK
England
Oxfordshire

Coordinates: 51°41′31″N 0°59′42″W / 51.692°N 0.995°W

Adwell is a village and civil parish about 3 miles (5 km) south of Thame in South Oxfordshire. The parish covers 434 acres (176 ha) and the village has 9 homes.

History

Adwell Cop, 0.5 miles (800 m) southeast of the village, is a hill 148 metres high crowned with a Bronze Age burial mound. Iron Age pottery has been found nearby.[2] Formerly the Cop was erroneously attributed to the Danes who were in Oxfordshire in 1010.[2]

The Domesday Book of 1086 records the village as Advelle.

The manor house is Adwell House. There had been a 17th-century house on ths site, but it was rebuilt in either the late 18th[3] or early 19th century.[4] Early in the 19th century the manor was inherited by John H. Birch, who took the name Newell Birch as a condition of the legacy. He left the house to his nephew Henry Birch Reynardson, in whose family the house has remained.[3] In the 20th century three generations of Birch Reynardson served as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire: W.J.B. Birch Reynardson in 1913, Lieutenant-Colonel H.T.B. Birch Reynardson C.M.G. in 1958 and W.R.A.B. Birch Reynardson in 1974.

Parish church

The original parish church is believed to have been built late in the 12th century, although the earliest documentation of it is dated 1254.[3] It had only a nave and chancel. The latter may have been enlarged in the 13th century, judging by its east window which was early Decorated Gothic.[3] In the 14th century new windows were inserted in the nave and a new west door was added.[3] In 1553 the building was recorded as having a bell-cot with two bells. All of the walls were repaired around 1800, but by the early 1860s the building was considered too weak to be restored.[3]

The old church building was demolished and in 1865 it was replaced with a new Church of England parish church of Saint Mary designed by the Gothic Revival architect Arthur Blomfield.[4] Blomfield's design replicated the early Decorated style, but the new building retained the south doorway of the old church, which is in the transitional style between Norman and Early English Gothic.[4] The new church also retains the memorials from inside the old one, including a stone effigy of a knight from about 1300.[3] The new building has no aisles, but has north and south chapels arranged as transepts either side of the chancel.[3] There is no tower, but a bell-cot with one bell. The bell dates from about 1350 and so may be from the old church building.[3]

Amenities

The Oxfordshire Way footpath passes the western edge of the village.

References

  1. ↑ "Area selected: South Oxfordshire (Non-Metropolitan District)". Neighbourhood Statistics: Full Dataset View. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Site name: Adwell". Oxfordshire's Historic archives. Ashmolean Museum.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Lobel 1969, pp. 7–16
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 419

Sources

External links