O Little Town of Wittenham

Or, The brief existence and mysterious demise of Littletown

Site of Littletown (Destroyed A.D. 1838). Image: CC-BY NLS

It’s clearly marked on OS maps from the 19th and 20th century: Littletown, Destroyed A.D 1838. It sounds dramatic, right? An official record of a noteworthy event. At the very least, something that would warrant a mention in a local newspaper. Well, apparently not. Indeed, evidence of Littletown’s actual existence is scant, never mind its apparently sudden demise. 

Location, location, location 

The site where Littletown (sometimes Little Town) once stood is in present-day Oxfordshire, though in an area that was part of Berkshire until 1974. Its location is close to the river Thames, on the northern edge of Little Wittenham parish on its boundary with Long Wittenham parish. The nearby pair of wooded hills known as Wittenham Clumps or Sinodun Hills, one of which was the site of an Iron Age hillfort, are a familiar landmark. The wider area has yielded Bronze Age, Roman and Saxon archaeology, suggesting a long period of habitation. 

Of Long and Little Wittenham, we have many records and a continued existence to the present day. Of Littletown, there are few mentions. On the University of Hull’s Deserted Medieval Villages of Berkshire map, it is listed as doubtful. On aerial photographs there are lumps and bumps in the general area, but these have been linked by modern archaeologists to much older occupation (such as Roman trackways and Bronze Age barrows). Crop marks that tantalised me on Google Maps alongside the label of ‘destroyed’ are also from older archaeology, it would seem. 

Here’s what we know for certain: 

• Littletown is not shown on Herman Moll's 1724 Berkshire map (though this also appears to misplace Appleford so may not be the most reliable). 
• Roque’s Map of 1761 shows two buildings here, but no named settlement. The tithe map for Long Wittenham (1812) shows a place called 'Little Houses' just across the boundary in the neighbouring parish of Little Wittenham. 
• The later tithe map for Little Wittenham (1841) has no mention of this place. The OS Original Series map of Berkshire (dating perhaps to 1810-20) shows ‘Little Town’ with 3 or 4 buildings and the hint of a settlement outline. 
• The OS Six-inch map of England and Wales (Berkshire Sheet XI revised 1910 and versions published 1914 and 1922) has the aforementioned note: Site of Littletown (Destroyed A.D. 1838) with the symbol for a site of antiquity. 
• The Victoria County History of Berkshire (ed. William Page, P H Ditchfield (London, 1924) describes the road from Little Wittenham leading north from the west side of the village. It stops “where it meets the road going westward to Long Wittenham, but is continued by a field track which is the parish boundary as far as the site of Little Town, a row of cottages removed in the early 19th century.” 
• The same source mentions local field names of Upper and Under Shinnel and notes that the latter was “where Little Town stood.” (Note, these field names are transcribed as Upper Stunnel and Under Stunnel on The Genealogist website which holds the tithe apportionment books behind a subscription). 
• In a 1900 edition of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire Archaeological Journal (Vol 6), correspondence by a William Cozens of Benson noted: “Beyond the park to the north of the old Manor House, the residence of Sir Henry Oxenden in 1787 but shortly afterwards demolished, there stood early in the 19th century a group of cottages called Little Town; at this spot a fine denarius of Trajan was found.” 
• Aerial observations in the 1930s were summarised in an article in the journal Oxoniensia Vol 5 (1940): “For the past six years observations have been made from the air, and the accompanying map (Fig 10) shows the marks which have been photographed during that period...There are two main groups, one to the west and another to the east of the Northfield Farm buildings; a third group about half-a-mile to the south, near what is marked on the O.S. map ‘Site of Littletown.’ 

The above places the settlement’s existence sometime between 1724 and 1840. The information for the later OS reference to it being destroyed in 1838 must come from somewhere, but I haven't found it.

What then was Little Town and what was its fate? Was it a post-medieval hamlet abandoned because of a particular incident? Natural disasters such as floods, fires, or severe storms could have led to a sudden demise. The proximity to the River Thames makes flooding a credible threat. But one might think an event like that would merit a mention in local newspapers. 

The 19th century was a time of significant social and economic transformation across England. The rural landscape was being drastically altered by enclosures, falling agricultural wages and migrations to urban centres as the nature of employment changed irrevocably with the Industrial Revolution. 

LiDAR DTM image of site around Littletown (CC-BY NLS)

Against this backdrop, small settlements around the country either adapted to the changing times or faded into obscurity. If Little Town was never anything more than a couple of cottages in a not particularly useful location between larger settlements, there wasn’t much to adapt or destroy. 

As larger agricultural estates combined land and resources, smaller settlements were considered economically impractical. It is possible that this settlement was merely a burden to the landowner (George Henry Cherry Esquire, according to the tithe apportionment book) or occupier (John Latham) and the cottages were simply dismantled. 

These ‘Little Houses’ were presumably once home to workers, and possibly their families. From searches on the National Archives website, newspaper archives, and even Ancestry I haven’t been able to find the name of anyone appearing to be a resident or an owner of Littletown. My next effort will be a visit to churches in the area to check gravestones. 

I’m not hopeful but watch this space!