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Parish History |
| How long have people lived here? |
| Lower Heyford has been settled since
at least the 6th Century AD, and probably since prehistoric times. The
Romans certainly knew the area. There was a Roman villa in Caulcott; a
Roman road, Portway, crosses the high plateau to the east of the
village; a Roman coin from the time of the Emperor Constantine (4th
century AD) was found near the Church in the 1940s and another in
Victorian times in the field to the east of the Lane. There was an
Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian cemetery and possibly an Iron Age hill fort
outside the village near Cold Harbour, and crop marks show evidence of
early farming, which may also date from the Iron Age. The site was
popular, no doubt, because it was close to two fording points of the
River Cherwell, and is plentifully supplied with water from springs and
wells. When the water meadows to the north of the B4030, between the
railway and the River Cherwell, flood after winter rains, the site of
the mediaeval settlement can be clearly seen. A hundred years ago the
village was described as nestling in a hollow on the river bank, and its
agricultural land rises gently from the centre of population. In the
13th and 14th centuries, Caulcott was larger in size than Heyford, and
the joint parish was among the most prosperous in the Ploughley Hundred.
Caulcott had fallen into decline by the early 17th century, and much of
the previously cultivated land had reverted to rough pasture. |
| What was the village called? |
| Until the mid 13th century, the
village was called Heiford, probably because the ford was used at hay
harvest. The spelling Hegford was used in the Domesday Book (1088).
After the building of the bridge in 1255, it became known as Heyford ad
Pontem (Heyford at Bridge). From the mid 14th century until the 19th
century, it was sometimes known as Heyford Purcell, after the locally
important Purcell family. Nether Heyford was first recorded in 1474, and
later, Little or Lower Heyford were also used. |
| Who owned the land and houses?
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By the time of the Domesday survey
most of the land in the village was divided between two estates valued
at £6 each. By the 12th century, the manors were held by the Earls of
Cornwell and Gloucester, but a freehold estate was established by the
13th century. In mediaeval times the two manors passed through the hands
of a number of minor gentry and lords before being sold in 1533 by Sir
Edward Baynton to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The price paid for
Lower Heyford and Caulcott, including all the farmland, was £709.
For the greater part of the 16th and 17th centuries, Corpus land was
farmed by yeoman families, mainly the Bruces and the Merrys. The Varney
family of Caulcott date from the Tudor period, and their descendants
still thrive. William Bruce rebuilt the manor house in 1699 on the site
of a smaller house built by the Purcell family, who held lands in the
14th and 15th centuries. The Merry family farmed much of the same land
as the current farmer in 2002, and were noted for their longevity. Simon
Merry died in 1588 at the age of 100, and Gabriel Merry, commemorated in
the church died in 1684 aged 93. Later members of the family were
millers in the village, until the last member emigrated to America in
1845.
On the Langdon map of 1606, the settlement clusters around the Market
Square, with houses along the village street eastwards towards Mill
Lane. From the building of the bridge in 1255 until the end of the 19th
century the village had a market. The 17th century mill was enlarged in
the 18th century; it had four pairs of millstones, though the flow of
the river limited use to two pairs at any one time. An enlightened
Rector named Filmer owned wasteland on either side of the lane, now the
upper part of Freehold Street; he gave several leases to people who
built on the land. Between 1771 and 1881, the number of houses in the
village more than doubled from 56 to 116. |
| What were the roads like? |
| As in so much of the country, local
roads were appalling. They were deeply rutted and impassable in wet
weather, and preyed upon by highwaymen (see Hopcrofts Holt). The
turnpiking of the Bicester to Enstone road in 1793 brought some
improvement and tollgates were built at the eastern end of Heyford
bridge and the Town Gate close to the Bicester turn. |
| When did the railway come to
Heyford? |
| The Oxford to Banbury branch of the
Great Western Railway opened in 1850, employing a Station Master and six
porters at Heyford station. For some distance near the village the
railway runs along the old course of the river Cherwell, which was
diverted as a consequence. The engineers failed to provide sufficient
culverts beneath the embankment, and this lead to an increase in
flooding. By the end of the 19th century villagers were using the trains
not just to go to Oxford or Banbury, but to take holidays and even
day-trips to the seaside. |
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