Longworth

Longworth
St. Mary's parish church
Longworth  Longworth shown within Oxfordshire
Population	848 (2001 census[1])
OS grid reference	SU3999
Civil parish	Longworth
District	Vale of White Horse
Shire county	Oxfordshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Abingdon
Postcode district	OX13
Dialling code	01865
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Oxfordshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Wantage
Website	Longworth Village on the Web
List of places UK England Oxfordshire

Coordinates: 51°42′00″N 1°26′53″W / 51.7001°N 1.4480°W / 51.7001; -1.4480

Longworth is a village and civil parish about 7 miles (11 km) west of Abingdon-on-Thames and a similar distance east of Faringdon and south of Witney. It is located in the historic county of Berkshire, however, since 1974 for administration purposes the village is located in the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire. The hamlet of Newbridge is located within the parish of Longworth. There is a non-denominational primary school in the village.

Longworth parish stretches between the River Thames in the north and the A420 road in the south. Harrowdown Hill, in the north of the parish near the Thames, is where biological warfare expert David Kelly died (or committed suicide) during the Second Gulf War WMD scandal.^[2]

Sir Henry Marten, a 17th-century judge of the Admiralty Court, and his son, Henry Marten, the regicide, lived at Longworth House.^[3][4] The Old Rectory at Longworth was the birthplace on 7 June 1825 of the novelist R. D. Blackmore, author of Lorna Doone, whose father was briefly curate-in-charge of the parish.^[5]

Geography and transport

Longworth is 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Oxford and 5 miles (8 km) southeast of the old market town of Bampton. Longworth is just south of the River Thames crossing at Newbridge.

Longworth has two bus services. RH Transport services route 63 links Longworth with Oxford from Monday to Saturday via the villages of Southmoor, Hinton Waldrist, Appleton, Eaton and Cumnor. Grayline^[6] route 43 links Eaton with Abingdon-on-Thames via Longworth on Mondays and Thursdays.

Public houses

The Blue Boar public house

Longworth has two public houses: the Blue Boar^[7] in the village and The Maybush Inn at Newbridge about 1 mile north of the village. The Lamb and Flag 2 miles south of the village was in the parish, however, boundary changes in 2011 moved the public house into Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor.

The thatched part of the Blue Boar was built in 1606 during the Great Rebuilding of England and the two storey part was added about 50 years later. It is not clear however whether it has always been a pub. As it is on the main route out of the village to the River Thames it was popular in the 19th century as a resting stop for horse, cart and drover. The current owner rescued it from dereliction in the late 1970s and has extended and modernised it while retaining the beams and open fires. It is the only one of five original licenced premises surviving within the village boundary and is now a gastropub.

On the Blue Boar pub sign, the white boar and the white rose on the pennant are the symbols of Richard III. The blue boar was the personal badge of the De Vere family who were the Earls of Oxford. Legend has it that when King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, any White Boar pub signs were quickly repainted as Blue Boars, as an acknowledgement that the white boar was dead and the blue boar prevailed.

Blue Boar RFC

Blue Boar Rugby Football Club^[8] is based at the Blue Boar pub in Longworth. It normally plays home games at Oxford RFC.

The club played its first game of rugby in March 1977, as a result of a challenge by staff of Blackwells Bookshop in Oxford. The occasion proved so enjoyable that the following season several more matches were arranged against local sides and the club affiliated to the Oxfordshire Rugby Football Union. In succeeding seasons the number of fixtures and strength of opposition increased, and in May 1981 the club was elected to the Rugby Football Union.

In September 1980 the club made its first tour of Cornwall. It made further visits to the Duchy in 1987, 1988 and 1989. It made its first foreign tour in 1981, when a party of 35 players and supporters went to Brittany and enjoyed themselves so much that they returned there a year later. In 1991 the club was the first English RFU club to make an official tour of Hungary, which was hosted by the Hungarian Rugby Union.

The club reached the final of the Oxfordshire Knockout Cup Plate competition in the 2003-04 and 2008-09 seasons.

References

Further reading

• Page, W.H.; Ditchfield, P.H., eds. (1924). A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 4. Victoria County History. pp. 466–471. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 171–172. 

External links

Media related to Longworth at Wikimedia Commons

The District of the Vale of White Horse Oxfordshire County Council elections District Council elections Wantage County Constituency Oxford West and Abingdon County Constituency Towns Abingdon Caldecott Faringdon Wantage Belmont Large villages Blewbury Cumnor Chilswell Cumnor Hill Dean Court Farmoor Swinford Drayton East Challow East Hendred Grove Harwell Kennington Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor Kingston Bagpuize Southmoor Marcham Cothill Milton North Hinksey Botley Harcourt Hill Radley St. Helen Without Dry Sandford Shippon Shrivenham Stanford in the Vale Bow Steventon Sunningwell Bayworth Boars Hill Foxcombe Hill Sutton Courtenay Watchfield Wootton Boars Hill Henwood Lamborough Hill Other civil parishes (component villages and hamlets) Appleford-on-Thames Appleton-with-Eaton Appleton Eaton Ardington and Lockinge Ardington Wick East Lockinge West Ginge West Lockinge Ashbury Idstone Kingstone Winslow Baulking Besselsleigh Bourton Buckland Gainfield Buscot Charney Bassett Childrey Chilton Coleshill Compton Beauchamp Knighton Denchworth East Hanney Eaton Hastings Fernham Frilford Fyfield and Tubney Fyfield Tubney Netherton Garford Goosey Great Coxwell Hatford Little Hatford Hinton Waldrist Duxford Kingston Lisle Letcombe Bassett Letcombe Regis Little Coxwell Littleworth Longcot Longworth Lyford Pusey Shellingford South Hinksey Hinksey Hill Sparsholt Uffington Upton West Challow West Hanney West Hendred East Ginge Woolstone Wytham Seacourt Former districts and boroughs Municipal Borough of Abingdon Abingdon Rural District Faringdon Rural District Wantage Urban District Wantage Rural District Former constituencies Oxfordshire County Constituency Abingdon Borough Constituency Berkshire North or Abingdon County Constituency Abingdon County Constituency List of Parliamentary constituencies in Oxfordshire List of places in Oxfordshire List of civil parishes in Oxfordshire