West Ginge
| West Ginge | |
| Berkshire | |
|---|---|
 West Ginge and farmland | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU447864 |
| Location: | 51°34’32"N, 1°21’21"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Wantage |
| Postcode: | OX12 |
| Dialling code: | 01235 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Vale of White Horse |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Wantage |
West Ginge is a hamlet in northern Berkshire, four miles by road to the south-east of Wantage. West Ginge stands immediately next to the hamlet of East Ginge, the latter dominated by farm buildings. The two hamlets are often simply referred to together as Ginge.
A chalk stream Ginge Brook begins in the hamlet, which continues northward to Sutton Courtenay and Steventon to join the River Thames near Abingdon.
History
A manor at Ginge is listd in the Domesday Book of 1086 and stated to be under the patronage of Abingdon Abbey. In the time of the Saxons the lands belonged to three proprietors of the name of Selva, Topius, and Borda; and at the General Survey to Robert de Gernon, or Grino, whose son and heir was William de Montfitchet, Head of the Barony of Stansted.[1]
Upon his death, in the reign of Henry II, William's son Gilbert de Montfitchet was said to have "granted half the Manor of Ginges (with the exception of the outer wood called Westfrid) with all its appurtenances to God and Saint Mary, Saint John the Baptist, and the poor of the holy house of the Hospital of Jerusalem, and the brethren in the same house, serving God, in free and pure alms", meaning that he ceded half of the manor to the church.[1] His son Richard, seems to have given the Brethren the other part of this Manor, for in King John's Confirmation Charter it says, "The Vill of Ginnges with the Church and all its appurtenances."[1]
During the time of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile in the 1260s it was known to have been owned by Robert, son of Andrew le Blund.[2] It is mentioned again in 1431, when it was owned by Alice, the wife of Walter Gyffard, who passed it onto her son William Gyffard upon her death on 24 April 1431. In 1614, the manor was sold by Sir John Horton and his wife Lady Jane, daughter of Serjeant Hanham of Wimbourne for £1400 to Minister Benedict Winchombe of Noke[3]
Ginge was accidentally bombed in Second World War by a German bomber. The pilot believed that he was unloading ammunition onto open countryside after an attack on London, but instead struck houses in the hamlet.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Buckler, George (1856). Twenty-two of the churches of Essex architecturally described and illustrated. p. 58. https://archive.org/details/twentytwoofchurc00buckrich. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ↑ Parsons, John C. (15 December 1997). Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-312-17297-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=93W9C5YzWVUC&pg=PA157. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ↑ The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society. 1859. p. 320. https://books.google.com/books?id=JFxIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA320. Retrieved 17 June 2012.