History Shorts: snippets of local history

The idea of a lost medieval village sounds mysterious and thrilling, conjuring images of streets and houses lost to modern maps, abandoned for reasons unknown and buried under layers of subsequent history. In reality these deserted villages were most likely very small settlements populated by a few families linked to a manor house and perhaps a church. There are literally thousands in England alone and the factors driving their abandonment were probably more mundane than catastrophic.  One such abandoned settlement is Bix Brand nestled in a valley in the Chiltern Hills a few miles from Henley. What remains today is the ruins of a Norman era church dedicated to St James but the area is known to have been populated in Roman times - a Roman farmhouse and artefacts have been discovered in the vicinity. Also nearby lies part of the prehistoric earthworks known as Grim's Ditch.  By the time of the Domesday Book, there were two settlements in the area known as Bixa Brand, which had ten fa

Roads cut through landscapes. They fragment wildlife habitats. They take us places. They connect neighbourhoods. Some seem like permanent fixtures but over time they've been re-aligned or blocked off or closed completely. Sometimes a hint of a road's former existence can still be found in the landscape. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Click on the image to go through to the wonderful side-by-side viewer on their website The road name 'Lane End' in Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxfordshire today reminds us that it once served as the junction of Broom's Lane (now Clack's Lane) with the Wallingford-Henley Road. It was removed when the A4074 road was built, with Clack's Lane finishing at the Port Way roundabout instead. From aerial views a faint trace of its former route can be glimpsed, a ghost road if you like. A whisper even remains on the ground.

"One Blake hung upon an oak in the way to Abingdon, beyond the half-way gate. This traitor betrayed three Christian kings, and would have betrayed the fourth ; upon which he was hanged, within two days after his design was discovered, upon the said oak, which is still called 'Blake's Oak.'  The wood was formerly a haunt of robbers, and here St. Edward of Abingdon was once attacked by them, but his protestations of poverty being found to be true, he was allowed to proceed unharmed."  A Handbook for Travellers in Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire , London: J. Murray, 1860 A very small copse named Blake's Oak exists on land north of Abingdon near to where a proposed large housing development will be built. It lies relatively close to the slightly bigger Sugnell Copse and is adjacent to the main Oxford to Abingdon road. The OS Six Inch map (1888-1913) shows what is still effectively the modern extent of both copses (though I wonder if both copses were once join

A residential area of Abingdon in Oxfordshire retains the hint of how the landscape was shaped in the age of William the Conqueror. Land here was awarded to a knight following the Norman invasion of 1066, upon which was constructed a motte and bailey. A small river, the Stert, flowed beside it and served as a moat. The motte and bailey was later abandoned in favour of a medieval house, later known as FitzHarris manor house (or Fitzharry's) built a short distance away. Subsequent developments, including massive expansion of housing in the 20th century, has obliterated much of the old landscape. However that old Norman motte is still there, now largely overgrown by trees and difficult to see. You might not even realize it's there. The LiDAR image below shows the extent of the motte and the clearing some 100 yards away where the grounds of the old manor house used to be (later rebuilt, it was finally demolished in 1953 having fallen into disrepair after the rest of the estate

Green man , a photo by bishib70 on Flickr. I've just spotted in the Radio Times that Dr Richard Taylor's excellent Churches: How to Read Them series is getting a repeat run on BBC4. (Tonight, Nov 30, is episode 2 Medieval Life - try to tune in if you haven't seen it. There's also a DVD or iPlayer!). In a (very) little nod to the series I'm blogging this photo of a carved Green Man from All Saints Church, Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire! (The church was built in the late 12th century although includes later additions.)