North Aston
Encyclopedia
North Aston is a village and civil parish about 7.5 miles (12 km) south of Banbury
and 10 miles (16 km) north of Oxford
.
The village is mainly situated around a traditional village green
, complete with hand-carved sign and drinking fountain – the latter originally installed in 1863 on the orders of the then Lord of the Manor, William Foster-Melliar, but restored as part of the village's celebrations of the Millennium in 1999.
A majority of homes in North Aston are Victorian
or earlier and are built of local limestone
. Much of the village is in a conservation area and there have been few changes over the years, although a number of newer houses have been added recently.
of Saint Mary the Virgin
existed by 1151, when William of Aston gave it to the Augustinian
Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire
. George Gilbert Scott
restored and enlarged the building in 1867. The tower has a ring
of six bells. Henry III Bagley, who had bell-foundries
at Chacombe and Witney
, cast the tenor bell in 1741. John Warner and Sons of London cast two more bells in 1866. John Taylor & Co of Loughborough
cast the remaining three bells including the treble in 1979.
Since 1976 St. Mary's has belonged to a united Church of England Benefice with the neighbouring parishes of Steeple Aston
and Tackley
.
North Aston Hall is a large Jacobethan
country house
, rebuilt in the 17th century and remodelled in the 18th century.
The Manor House
is an H-shaped building of which the central part was probably the hall of a 15th century house or earlier. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries
in 1539 the neighbouring and ultimately much grander North Aston Hall became the primary home of the lords of the manor
of North Aston, while the manor house became one of the main farm houses of the estate. Occupied by various tenants, the property was called Great House Farm during the 18th and 19th centuries, later Manor House Farm. It was sold as part of the North Aston Estate in 1907, the last time the village was sold as a single entity. The Manor House became the primary home of the Taylor family after they sold the Hall to Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford
in 1911. In the 1930s Captain John Vickris Taylor had a new house built on land that had once formed part of the tract associated with Great House Farm, and called this Manor Farm. in 1976 the Captain's son, Colonel Anthony Taylor, sold the Manor itself to Charles Mackenzie Hill, who subsequently also bought North Aston Hall.
The Domesday Book
records a watermill
in the parish, presumably on the River Cherwell
. The Gambon family were the millers for most of the 13th century, and it continued to be called Gambon's Mill until the 18th century. From the latter part of the 16th century until early in the 18th century it seems to have been a double mill with two millraces
and two separate tenants. The last known record of a double mill is from 1733. The Rose family were millers here continuously from 1673 until its commercial closure in 1938, although grain continued to be milled for local use throughout the period of the Second World War, and for a brief time afterwards. The Mill was sold off by the Estate in 1950 and by 1955 had been converted into a private home. Its machinery has been restored and in 1980 remained in situ.
The stretch of the Oxford Canal
between Banbury and Tackley
was completed in 1787. It runs along the Cherwell valley and for a short distance it forms the eastern boundary of North Aston parish.
A village school was built in 1844 and was supervised by the Church of England
Diocese of Oxford
. In 1872 it moved to new premises when William Foster-Melliar converted the original coach house to the North Aston Hall into a schoolroom with two teachers' cottages attached. In 1923 it was reorganised as a junior school and senior pupils were transferred to the school at Steeple Aston
. After the second World War the number of pupils steadily declined, and in 1955 North Aston school was closed. For some twenty years the old schoolroom acted as a village hall to the community, but in 1976 the building was converted for residential use.
, Nicholsons Nurseries.
North Aston Farms is an accredited organic
mixed farm producing vegetables, dairy products and meat.
The Peach Pub Company moved its head office to a restored barn at Park Farm, North Aston, in January 2009.
Banbury
Banbury is a market town and civil parish on the River Cherwell in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire. It is northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...
and 10 miles (16 km) north of Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
.
The village is mainly situated around a traditional village green
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
, complete with hand-carved sign and drinking fountain – the latter originally installed in 1863 on the orders of the then Lord of the Manor, William Foster-Melliar, but restored as part of the village's celebrations of the Millennium in 1999.
A majority of homes in North Aston are Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
or earlier and are built of local limestone
Cotswold stone
Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic limestone quarried in many places in the Cotswold Hills in the south midlands of England. When weathered, the colour of buildings made or faced with this stone is often described as 'honey' or 'golden'....
. Much of the village is in a conservation area and there have been few changes over the years, although a number of newer houses have been added recently.
History
The Church of England parish churchChurch of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
of Saint Mary the Virgin
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
existed by 1151, when William of Aston gave it to the Augustinian
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
. George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
restored and enlarged the building in 1867. The tower has a ring
Change ringing
Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes". It differs from many other forms of campanology in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody....
of six bells. Henry III Bagley, who had bell-foundries
Bellfounding
Bellfounding is the casting of bells in a foundry for use in churches, clocks, and public buildings. A practitioner of the craft is called a bellmaker or bellfounder. The process in Europe dates to the 4th or 5th century. In early times, when a town produced a bell it was a momentous occasion in...
at Chacombe and Witney
Witney
Witney is a town on the River Windrush, west of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England.The place-name 'Witney' is first attested in a Saxon charter of 969 as 'Wyttannige'; it appears as 'Witenie' in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name means 'Witta's island'....
, cast the tenor bell in 1741. John Warner and Sons of London cast two more bells in 1866. John Taylor & Co of Loughborough
Loughborough
Loughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...
cast the remaining three bells including the treble in 1979.
Since 1976 St. Mary's has belonged to a united Church of England Benefice with the neighbouring parishes of Steeple Aston
Steeple Aston
Steeple Aston is a village and civil parish on the edge of the Cherwell Valley in Oxfordshire, England, about west of Bicester and south of Banbury...
and Tackley
Tackley
Tackley is a village and civil parish beside the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England. It is about west of Bicester and north of Kidlington. The village consists of two neighbourhoods: Tackley itself, and Nethercott.-Archaeology:...
.
North Aston Hall is a large Jacobethan
Jacobethan
Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...
country house
English country house
The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...
, rebuilt in the 17th century and remodelled in the 18th century.
The Manor House
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
is an H-shaped building of which the central part was probably the hall of a 15th century house or earlier. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
in 1539 the neighbouring and ultimately much grander North Aston Hall became the primary home of the lords of the manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
of North Aston, while the manor house became one of the main farm houses of the estate. Occupied by various tenants, the property was called Great House Farm during the 18th and 19th centuries, later Manor House Farm. It was sold as part of the North Aston Estate in 1907, the last time the village was sold as a single entity. The Manor House became the primary home of the Taylor family after they sold the Hall to Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford
Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford
Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford KP, MVO , known as Lord Silchester until 1887, was an Irish peer and soldier....
in 1911. In the 1930s Captain John Vickris Taylor had a new house built on land that had once formed part of the tract associated with Great House Farm, and called this Manor Farm. in 1976 the Captain's son, Colonel Anthony Taylor, sold the Manor itself to Charles Mackenzie Hill, who subsequently also bought North Aston Hall.
The Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
records a watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
in the parish, presumably on the River Cherwell
River Cherwell
The River Cherwell is a river which flows through the Midlands of England. It is a major tributary of the River Thames.The general course of the River Cherwell is north to south and the 'straight-line' distance from its source to the Thames is about...
. The Gambon family were the millers for most of the 13th century, and it continued to be called Gambon's Mill until the 18th century. From the latter part of the 16th century until early in the 18th century it seems to have been a double mill with two millraces
Leat
A leat is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond...
and two separate tenants. The last known record of a double mill is from 1733. The Rose family were millers here continuously from 1673 until its commercial closure in 1938, although grain continued to be milled for local use throughout the period of the Second World War, and for a brief time afterwards. The Mill was sold off by the Estate in 1950 and by 1955 had been converted into a private home. Its machinery has been restored and in 1980 remained in situ.
The stretch of the Oxford Canal
Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in Bedworth just...
between Banbury and Tackley
Tackley
Tackley is a village and civil parish beside the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England. It is about west of Bicester and north of Kidlington. The village consists of two neighbourhoods: Tackley itself, and Nethercott.-Archaeology:...
was completed in 1787. It runs along the Cherwell valley and for a short distance it forms the eastern boundary of North Aston parish.
A village school was built in 1844 and was supervised by the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
Diocese of Oxford
Diocese of Oxford
-History:The Diocese of Oxford was created in 1541 out of part of the Diocese of Lincoln.In 1836 the Archdeaconry of Berkshire was transferred from the Diocese of Salisbury to Oxford...
. In 1872 it moved to new premises when William Foster-Melliar converted the original coach house to the North Aston Hall into a schoolroom with two teachers' cottages attached. In 1923 it was reorganised as a junior school and senior pupils were transferred to the school at Steeple Aston
Steeple Aston
Steeple Aston is a village and civil parish on the edge of the Cherwell Valley in Oxfordshire, England, about west of Bicester and south of Banbury...
. After the second World War the number of pupils steadily declined, and in 1955 North Aston school was closed. For some twenty years the old schoolroom acted as a village hall to the community, but in 1976 the building was converted for residential use.
Economy
North Aston has a substantial garden centreGarden centre
A garden centre is a retail firm that sells plants and products related to gardens as its primary business. It is open to the public, with facilities to care for and display plants.- UK :...
, Nicholsons Nurseries.
North Aston Farms is an accredited organic
Organic certification
Organic certification is a certification process for producers of organic food and other organic agricultural products. In general, any business directly involved in food production can be certified, including seed suppliers, farmers, [food] processors, retailers and restaurants.Requirements vary...
mixed farm producing vegetables, dairy products and meat.
The Peach Pub Company moved its head office to a restored barn at Park Farm, North Aston, in January 2009.