Todenham
| Todenham | |
| Gloucestershire | |
|---|---|
.jpg) St Thomas a Becket Church, Todenham | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP237358 |
| Location: | 52°1’14"N, 1°39’20"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Moreton-in-Marsh |
| Postcode: | GL56 |
| Dialling code: | 01608 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cotswold |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
The Cotswolds |
Todenham is a village in the Cotswolds, in the east of Gloucestershire and close to the border of Oxfordshire. The village is significant for its Grade I listed 14th-century parish church.
Todenham is recorded as Todanhom in 804, in the kingdom of the Mercians, and as Teodeham in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name is believed to be from the Old English 'Teoda's homestead', or 'Teoda's meadow'[1][2]
Parish church
The parish church, St Thomas a Becket, is largely of the 14th-century, of the Decorated Gothic style. It was restored in 1879. The church is built of local limestone, with a tower topped with an octagonal spire. The church is a Grade I listed building.[3]
The chancel has a rare survival: a chantry chapel on north side. The church contains 14th-century piscina and sedilia, traces of mediæval wall painting, a 12th-century font, an 18th- to early 19th-century pulpit, 19th-century stained glass and the remains of stairs to a former rood loft. The chancel chantry chapel was the family pew of the Pole family. It contains a monument to Lady Louisa Pole (died 6 August 1852). The decorated-style chancel east window included a stained glass memorial (erected 1879) to Rev Gilbert Malcolm, parish rector from 1812 and the chancel has an inscribed brass memorial to William Moulton (died 1614).
The restoration in the early 16th century included the addition of the north chapel. Further restoration in 1879 was undertaken by J. E. K. Cutts.
There are various monuments and memorials to members of the Van Notten-Pole family, who were late 18th- to 20th-century lords of Todenham manor.
Today the church is part of the Vale of Moreton St David's benefice of four churches (sharing the same rector), the others being St Mary's at Batsford, St Leonard's at Lower Lemington, and St James's at Longborough.[4]
The church register dates to 1721, and includes a list of former rectors going back farther. A significant rector was Thomas Merkes (1397-1403), 'abbot of Westminster', then Bishop of Carlisle (1397-1400), who was 'degraded' by King Henry IV for his support of the deposed Richard II. The parish living was a rectory which included 188 acres of glebe to support a parish priest, and a residence, under the patronage of the Bishop of Gloucester.
History
In 804 the Benedictine monastery at Deerhurst acquired Todenham manor from Æthelric, the son of Æthelmund. The priory, and therefore the manor of Todenham, then passed to King Edward the Confessor, who granted it in his will to his new foundation, Westminster Abbey.[2][5][6]
Todenham in the Domesday Book is listed as being in the Deerhurst Hundred of Gloucestershire. The settlement contained 59 villeins, 54 smallholders and 51 slaves. There were ploughlands for 24½ lord's plough teams and 28 men's plough teams. Resources were 40 acres of meadow, a woodland of half a league, and four mills. Three of the mills may have been included as part of the wider Deerhurst manor. Major lordship in 1066 was held by Westminster Abbey, which retained it in 1086 after the Norman conquest, while becoming Tenant-in-chief to the King.[6][7]
Todenham manor had belonged in 1542 to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, then in 1545 to the Petre family of Essex after it was given to William Petre, the Tudor Secretary of State. It was retained by the Petre family until 1783, when it was sold to the Pole family who originated in Derbyshire. Lordship of the manor resided with this branch of the Poles until 1951. The Pole family seat was Todenham House in the village.
In the second half of the 19th century a railway station was built here, on the line of the Oxford and Worcester section of the Great Western Railway.[8][9][10] The nearest railway station today is at Moreton-in-Marsh.
There a new National School, built in 1874 for 100 children: there had been no parish school in late 17th century, but an endowment of £20 in 1704 was given for the education of poor children, these to be selected by the rector and churchwardens. A previous National school, which was subscription, fee and rector financed, existed from the early to mid-19th century in a rented building.[6]
About the village
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The parish is entirely rural, of farms, fields, coppice woodland, lakes, dispersed businesses and residential properties, the only nucleated settlement being the village of Todenham. At the south-west of the parish, and next to the hamlet of Lower Lemington in Batsford, is a complex of commercial fishing lakes.
Within the village is a village hall, The Farriers Arms public house next to St Thomas a Becket Church, and various local businesses.
Just 180 yards north-west of the church are Todenham Manor (listed 1985) and The Dower House (listed 1960). The early 19th-century ashlar and limestone U-plan Manor house was home to the Pole family. It was enlarged, including new facades, by Guy Dawber in 1890.[11] The Dower House is a detached rectangular plan two-storey ashlar-faced house with a 1717 datestone.[12]
Opposite the church, on Todenham Road, is the Old Reading Room, or Church View (listed 1960), an 18th-century dressed limestone semi-detached building with a 1713 datestone, mullioned windows and gable dormers, which was further extended in the 18th and 19th century.[13] Opposite the Old Reading Room, set against the churchyard wall and forming an L-plan with The Farriers public house, is the single storey red brick Blacksmith's Shop (listed 2008), a blacksmith's forge, dating to about 1757, which was extended in the mid- to late 19th century. The interior is separated into three rooms: the left, originally with terracotta tiled floor and with a double door entrance, a forge and two furnaces was likely used to shoe horses. The walls of the rooms have inset projecting iron spikes used to hang forging tools and forged items.[14]
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On the west side of Todenham Road just inside the southern road entry sign to Todenham are Phillip's Farmhouse and Wyatts Farmhouse (both listed 1985), closely adjacent. Both are two-storey detached houses of dressed limestone, Phillip's, of rectangular plan, dates to the mid-19th century, and Wyatts, T-plan, to the late 17th to early 18th century. Phillip's windows are 19th-century metal casements. Its porch, open sided with hipped roof, with first floor window forms a central bay; the bay either side with ground and first floor windows. A chimney stack is at each gable end. Wyatts' windows are stone mullioned, of irregular placement, and of three- and four lights.[15][16]
A pack horse bridge crosses the Knee Brook at the northern edge of the parish and 1,300 yards north from the village parish church. It dates to the 16th century but was rebuilt in the 18th. Constructed of dressed limestone, it is of two arches with central pier.[17]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Todenham) |
References
- ↑ Mills, Anthony David: 'A Dictionary of British Place-Names' (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 978-0-19-852758-9
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "History": Todenham Parish Council
- ↑ National Heritage List 1152576: Church of St Thomas of Canterbury
- ↑ "Our Churches", St Davids Church
- ↑ A History of the County of Gloucester - Volume 8 pp 34-49: Deerhurst (Victoria County History)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 A History of the County of Gloucester - Volume pp 250-258: Toddenham (Victoria County History)
- ↑ Todenham in the Domesday Book
- ↑ Post Office Directory of Gloucestershire, Bath & Bristol (1856) pp.377, 378
- ↑ Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire (1897) pp.336, 337
- ↑ Lewis, Samuel: 'A Topographical Dictionary of England' (1845), vol. IV, p.366
- ↑ National Heritage List 1341286: Todenham Manor
- ↑ National Heritage List 1304646: The Dower House
- ↑ National Heritage List 1341285: Church View and Old Reading Room
- ↑ National Heritage List 1392671: The Blacksmith's Shop
- ↑ National Heritage List 1089490: Phillip's Farmhouse
- ↑ National Heritage List 1152623: Wyatts Farmhouse
- ↑ National Heritage List 1089487: Packhorse Bridge over Knee Brook
