Wytham

Wytham
Berkshire
Wytham
Location
Grid reference:	SP4708
Location:	51°46’41"N, 1°18’47"W
Data
Population:	131  (2001)
Post town:	Oxford
Postcode:	OX2
Dialling code:	01865
Local Government
Council:	Vale of White Horse
Parliamentary constituency:	Oxford West and Abingdon
Website:	Wytham Village

Wytham is a village in northern Berkshire on Seacourt Stream, a branch of the River Thames, about three miles north-west of Oxford. It is tucked just west of the Western By-Pass Road, part of the Oxford Ring Road.

The village's name is first recorded as Wihtham around 957, and comes from the Old English for a homestead or village in a river-bend.

The manor of Wytham along with Wytham Abbey (not a religious foundation but the manor house) and much of the village was formerly owned by the Earls of Abingdon. The parish church of All Saints is a mediæval building extensively rebuilt between 1811 and 1812 by Montagu Bertie, 5th Earl of Abingdon.

Wytham Woods is an area of long-established mixed woodland noted for their high population of badgers and long-term monitoring of great tits. The woods are a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The University of Oxford owns the woods and uses them for research in zoology and climatology. The University also has a field station north of the village.

Picture gallery

• 
  All Saints' parish church
• 
  Keepers Cottage, Wytham Woods, a gift to the University of Oxford in 1943

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Wytham)

• Wytham Village Hall
• All Saints Church, Wytham
• Nature Conservation in Wytham Woods
• Wytham Woods SSSI citation

Sources

• Mills, A.D.; Room, A. (2003). A Dictionary of British Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. not cited. ISBN 0198527586. 
• Page, W.H.; Ditchfield, P.H., eds (1924). A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 4. Victoria County History. pp. 427–430. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 314.