Kingham

For other uses, see Kingham (disambiguation).
Kingham

The parish church of St. Andrew
Kingham
 Kingham shown within Oxfordshire
Population 969 (2001 census)[1]
OS grid referenceSP2624
Civil parishKingham
DistrictWest Oxfordshire
Shire countyOxfordshire
RegionSouth East
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town Chipping Norton
Postcode district OX7
Dialling code 01608
Police Thames Valley
Fire Oxfordshire
Ambulance South Central
EU Parliament South East England
UK ParliamentWitney
List of places
UK
England
Oxfordshire

Coordinates: 51°54′18″N 1°36′50″W / 51.905°N 1.614°W

Kingham is a village and civil parish in the Cotswolds about 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

History

The Church of England parish church of Saint Andrew has a 15th-century Perpendicular Gothic west tower. The remainder of the church was rebuilt in 1852-1853.[2] The tower has a ring of eight bells, all cast in 1924 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough.[3]

Both The Rectory and the Old Rectory Cottage are 17th century.[4]

Construction of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&W) along the Evenlode Valley began in 1845 and was completed in 1853. It passes through the western part of Kingham parish but originally there was no station. In 1855 the Chipping Norton Railway was opened linking Chipping Norton with the OW&W 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Kingham village where new station, Chipping Norton Junction, was opened. In 1862 the Bourton on the Water Railway opened between Chipping Norton Junction and Bourton-on-the-Water. The Great Western Railway took over the OW&W in 1862 and the Chipping Norton and Bourton lines in 1897. In 1909 the GWR renamed the junction station "Kingham". In 1962 British Railways closed the branch lines to Chipping Norton and Bourton-on-the-Water. BR later replaced the historic Kingham railway station with a modern building.

In 1955 the Royal Navy named a Ham class minesweeper HMS Kingham after the village.

Amenities

Kingham railway station is now served by Cotswold Line trains between London Paddington, Oxford, Worcester and Hereford.

The village has two public houses: The Plough[5] which is beside one of the village greens and The Tollgate[6] which was built in 1720 as a farmhouse. The village has one hotel: The Mill House[7]

The village has a county primary school.[8] The private Kingham Hill School is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of the village.[9]

Kingham has a village shop and post office, a Royal British Legion club, a village hall, two village greens, a children's play park and a football field.

Kingham is twinned with the village of Pont-à-Marcq near Lille in France.

In 2004 a Country Life panel judged Kingham to be "England's Favourite Village".[10]

Blur bass-player Alex James lives on a sheep and dairy farm outside the village and chronicles the experience in his column in The Independent.[11]

References

  1. ↑ "Area selected: West Oxfordshire (Non-Metropolitan District)". Neighbourhood Statistics: Full Dataset View. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 29 March 2010.
  2. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 673
  3. ↑ "Place: Kingham S Andrew". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Retrieved 29 March 2010.
  4. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 674
  5. ↑ The Plough
  6. ↑ The Tollgate
  7. ↑ The Mill House
  8. ↑ Kingham County Primary School
  9. ↑ Kingham Hill School
  10. ↑ Rupert Uloth, Country Life, 11 November 2006
  11. ↑ Alex James, Rural Notebook

Sources

External links

Media related to Kingham at Wikimedia Commons