Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire
| Upper Heyford | |
| Oxfordshire | |
|---|---|
 St Mary's parish church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP498261 |
| Location: | 51°55’53"N, 1°16’34"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,295 (2011) |
| Post town: | Bicester |
| Postcode: | OX25 |
| Dialling code: | 01869 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cherwell |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Banbury |
| Website: | Upper Heyford |
Upper Heyford is a village in northern Oxfordshire, sitting beside the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal about six miles north-west of Bicester. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 1,295.
The village is just east of the River Cherwell. "Upper" distinguishes it from Lower Heyford which is about a mile downstream along the Cherwell valley.
The parish's western boundary is just west of the river. Chilgrove Drive, a continuation of Aves Ditch, forms part of the parish's eastern boundary. The former RAF Upper Heyford airfield is a mile east of the village.
Contents
Prehistory
The Portway, a pre-Roman road, runs parallel with the River Cherwell on high ground about a mile east of the river. Its course bisects Upper Heyford parish and passes just east of the village. Part of it forms a minor road to Kirtlington.
Manor
The Domesday Book of 1086 records the village as Haiford, with a manor of 10 hides that was one of the many estates of the Norman baron Robert D'Oyly. Along with many manors of the D'Oyly estate, Heyford became part of the Honour of Wallingford. The manor was tenanted by the de Chesney family until the late 12th century, when it passed by marriage to the Earls of Devon. In 1380 though the manor was sold to William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, who made them part of his endowment for the foundation of New College, Oxford.[1]
In about 1400[2] or shortly thereafter[1] New College had a tithe barn built at Manor Farm in the village. Its plan is 120 feet by 24 feet,[1] it is of nine bays and built of coursed rubble with ashlar quoins and buttresses.[3] The roof is of Stonesfield slate and has raised-cruck trusses.[4] The building has similarities with tithe barns at Swalcliffe[4] and Adderbury,[1] both of which were also built for New College early in the 15th century. It is a scheduled monument[5] and a Grade I listed building.[4]
Upper Heyford's common lands were enclosed in 1842.[1] New College still held the manor in the early 1950s.[1]
Church and chapels
- Church of England: St Mary's
The village had a church by 1074. The current parish church, St Mary may have been rebuilt in the latter part of the 15th century, but only the Perpendicular Gothic west tower survives from that time.
Major repairs to the roof and south aisle were made in 1668 and 1769, but by the 1860s the nave and chancel were in a poor condition again.[1] In 1865 the church was demolished except for the west tower. A new church, designed by the architect Thomas Talbot Bury in a Gothic Revival interpretation of Perpendicular Gothic, was built in its place and completed in 1867.[2]
This Victorian building has very regular coursed masonry, which departs conspicuously from the traditional Mediæval rubble masonry of the tower and, presumably, the demolished parts of the previous church. Bury preserved only a handful of features from the Mediæval church: a Perpendicular Gothic window in the north wall of the chancel, a piscina, a tomb recess and a 14th-century recumbent effigy of a priest in a 14th-century arched recess in the chancel.[2] St Mary's is a Grade II* listed building.[6]
The tower has three bells, the oldest of which is the tenor bell cast in 1624 by Richard I Purdue,[7] who had foundries in places including Glastonbury and Stoford in Somerset.[8]
St Mary's parsonage was designed by William Wilkinson and built in 1869.[2]
In 1829 a meeting-place for Protestant Dissenters was licensed in Upper Heyford. They may have been Wesleyan Methodists, whose chapel was rebuilt in 1867. By 1955 its congregation had dwindled to three members.[1] It later closed and was converted into a shop. It is now a private house.
In 1849 a second meeting-place was licensed, probably for Reformed Methodists. It was used until the 1880s. In the 1850s and 1860s the Primitive Methodists also had a licensed meeting-place in Upper Heyford.[1]
History
By 1784 Upper Heyford had a pub called the Three Horse Shoes. It was still trading in the 20th century, but is now a private house. After 1887 and in 1951 the village had two pubs.[1] Now only the Barley Mow (see below) is still trading.
In 1787 the Oxford Canal was extended south from Banbury down the Cherwell valley as far as Northbrook near Kirtlington.[9] In so doing it passed through the Upper Heyford parish just west of the village. Allen's Lock on the canal is just north of the village.
By 1815 Upper Heyford had a small Dame school. It was still operating in 1833 but had ceased by 1854. In 1828 St Mary's parish opened a Sunday school supported by New College. A National School was built and opened in 1859 and enlarged in 1893. In 1925 it was reorganised as a junior school, with senior pupils going to the school at Steeple Aston. The school was still open in 1954[1] but has since closed. The building is now a private house.
The Oxford and Rugby Railway was authorised in 1845 and its Oxford to Banbury section opened in September 1850. It passes through the north-west corner of the parish, crossing both the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal.
RAF Upper Heyford
About a mile east of the village is the former RAF Upper Heyford airfield. The Royal Air Force used the airfield from the 1920s as a bomber station, then in the 1950s assigned to the United States Air Force. Since its closure in 1994 the airfield has been converted into a substantial industrial and commercial estate. The runway, once the second longest in Europe, is used to store new cars awaiting delivery to dealers. Numerous Cold War relics remain including disused bunkers, water towers, huts and fences. Many of the buildings are now let out as industrial units. An estate of several hundred former MoD houses immediately south of the airfield is being redeveloped as an estate of 700 new homes called Heyford Park.[10]
About the village
Upper Heyford has one pub, the Barley Mow.[11]
The village has a village hall, allotments, sports field, football club and children's playground.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire) |
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 A History of the County of Oxford - Volume 6 pp 196-205: Ploughley Hundred (Victoria County History)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, 1974 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09639-2page 820-821
- ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 820.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 National Heritage List 1266058: Tithe barn south of Manor Farmhouse (Grade I listing)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1006351: Tithe Barn (Scheduled ancient monument entry)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1226006: Church of St Mary (Grade II* listing)
- ↑ Davies, Peter (15 December 2006). "Upper Heyford S Mary". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?searchString=Upper+Heyford&Submit=+Go+&DoveID=UPPER+HEYF.
- ↑ Dovemaster (25 June 2010). "Bell Founders". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/founders.php.
- ↑ Compton 1976, p. 37.
- ↑ "Heyford Park". Dorchester Living. https://www.heyfordpark.com/.
- ↑ The Barley Mow
- Blomfield, James Charles (1892). Part VI: History of Upper and Lower Heyford. Deanery of Bicester. London: Elliot Stock & Co.
- Compton, Hugh J (1976). The Oxford Canal. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 37. ISBN 0-7153-7238-6.
- A History of the County of Oxford - Volume 11 pp 81-120: Wootton Hundred (northern part) (Victoria County History)
- A History of the County of Oxford - Volume 6 pp 196-205: Ploughley Hundred (Victoria County History)
- Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, 1974 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09639-2
- Wing, William (1865). Annals of Heyford Warren, otherwise Upper Heyford. Oxford.
