Little Wittenham
Little Wittenham | |
Berkshire | |
---|---|
St. Peter's parish church | |
Location | |
Grid reference: | SU564932 |
Location: | 51°38’6"N, 1°11’10"W |
Data | |
Population: | 87 (2001) |
Post town: | Abingdon |
Postcode: | OX14 |
Dialling code: | 01865 |
Local Government | |
Council: | South Oxfordshire |
Parliamentary constituency: |
Wantage |
Little Wittenham is a village in Berkshire on the south bank of the River Thames, northeast of Didcot.
Parish church
The parish church is St Peter's. It has a 14th-century west bell tower,[1] of which the lower stages are Decorated Gothic and the upper stages are Perpendicular Gothic.[2] In 1863 the Gothic Revival architect Charles Buckeridge rebuilt the nave and chancel in the early English Gothic style.
St. Peter's has a number of memorials to members of the Dunche family who lived in Little Wittennham. Several Dunches represented Wallingford as members of parliament, including Edmund Dunch, a member of the Kit-Kat Club.
The most notable is a large monument to Sir William Dunche (died 1611) and his wife.[2] The monument is missing a canopy and supports, but it retains fine alabaster effigies of Sir William and Lady Dunche,[2] a pair of obelisks[2] that would have surmounted the canopy and a pair of tablets commemorating the couple's children.
About the village
The parish has one of only 220 habitats across Europe which is designated as a Special Area of Conservation under the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Day's Lock is north-east of the village.
On the opposite bank of the Thames in Oxfordshire, a little distance from the river itself, is the town of Dorchester-on-Thames which can be reached across Little Wittenham Bridge.
South of the village are the hills of Wittenham Clumps and to the south-east is Little Wittenham Wood bordering on the river. From Round Hill, one of the Clumps, there is a good view of the village to the north.
See also
Outside links
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Wittenham Little Wittenham) |
- Berkshire History: Little Wittenham
- Northmoor Trust
- Project Timescape
- Sylva Foundation
- St Peter's Church
References
Sources
- Page, W.H.; Ditchfield, P.H., eds (1924). A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 4. Victoria County History. pp. 380–384.
- Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 168–169.