Woodeaton
Encyclopedia
Woodeaton or Wood Eaton is a village and civil parish about 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast 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...

.

Archaeology

There was a Romano
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

-Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic temple north of where the parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 now stands, and probably a Romano-British settlement and shrine as well. The shrine was used successively by Roman pagans
Religion in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

 and Christians. Some notable bronze artefacts were discovered at the site and are now housed in the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...

 in Oxford.

Manor

The Old English toponym
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

 was originally Eatun. By the 12th century it had become Wood Eaton, perhaps to distinguish it from Water Eaton
Water Eaton
Water Eaton may refer to:*Water Eaton, Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, England*Water Eaton, Oxfordshire, England* Water Eaton , South Staffordshire, England...

 just over 1 miles (1.6 km) to the west.

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 that by 1086 the manor of Eaton belonged to Roger d'Ivry
Roger d'Ivry
Roger d'Ivry or d'Ivri was an 11th century nobleman from Ivry-la-Bataille in Normandy. He took part in William of Normandy's conquest of England in 1066 and founded the Abbey of Notre-Dame-d'Ivry in 1071...

. In about 1160 Helewis Avenel gave a virgate
Virgate
The virgate or yardland was a unit of land area measurement used in medieval England, typically outside the Danelaw, and was held to be the amount of land that a team of two oxen could plough in a single annual season. It was equivalent to a quarter of a hide, so was nominally thirty acres...

 of land at Woodeaton to Eynsham Abbey
Eynsham Abbey
Eynsham Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, in England between 1005 and 1538. King Æthelred allowed Æthelmær the Stout to found the abbey in 1005. There is some evidence that the abbey was built on the site of an earlier minster, probably founded in the 7th or 8th...

. The Abbey had a grange
Grange
-Buildings:* Grange House , Bo'ness, Scotland, built in 1564, and demolished in 1906* Hamilton Grange National Memorial, a historic house in New York City...

 and manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...

 court house in Woodeaton, recorded in 1366, but no trace remains. The Manor remained with the abbey until 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 1538.

At the centre of the village, by the 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...

, are the base and shaft of a 13th century Early English Gothic stone cross.

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 1536 the manor of Woodeaton was bought and sold by two speculators in succession. In 1544 Richard Taverner
Richard Taverner
Richard Taverner is best known for his Bible translation, The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars by Rychard Taverner, commonly known as Taverner's...

 (1505-75), the translator of Taverner's Bible
Taverner's Bible
Taverner's Bible, more correctly called The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars by Rychard Taverner, is a minor revision of Matthew's Bible edited by...

, bought the manor. In the 1550s he retired to the village and had a 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...

 built. Taverner is buried in Holy Rood churchyard. The manor remained in the Taverner family until 1604. It then passed through various hands until it was bought by the Nourse family from Middleton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

 somewhen between 1623 and 1625. In 1774 John Nourse, the last of the male line, died and left the manor to his daughter Elizabeth Weyland, wife of John Weyland.

In 1775 Weyland had the old manor house demolished and the present Woodeaton Manor built. The new house has a modest exterior but in 1791 the architect Sir John Soane
John Soane
Sir John Soane, RA was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. His architectural works are distinguished by their clean lines, massing of simple form, decisive detailing, careful proportions and skilful use of light sources...

 enhanced its main rooms with marble chimneypieces, added an Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 porch of Coade stone
Coade stone
Lithodipyra , or Coade stone, was ceramic stoneware that was often described as an artificial stone in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was used for moulding Neoclassical statues, architectural decorations and garden ornaments that were both of the highest quality and remain virtually...

, a service wing and an ornate main hall. The manor remained with the family until 1912 when Captain Mark Weyland sold house and part of the land. Most of the land is now owned by Christ Church College, Oxford.

Since 1950 Woodeaton Manor house has been an Oxfordshire County Council
Oxfordshire County Council
Oxfordshire County Council, established in 1889, is the county council, or upper-tier local authority, for the non-metropolitan county of Oxfordshire, in the South East of England, an elected body responsible for the most strategic local government services in the county.-History:County Councils...

 school for children with special educational needs.

Parish church

The Early English Gothic Church of England parish church
Church 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 the Holy Rood was built in the latter part of the 13th century. Several lancet window
Lancet window
A lancet window is a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singly or in pairs.The motif first...

s and the priest's doorway in the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 survive from this period. In the 14th century a large image of Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher
.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...

 was painted on the north wall inside the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

. Restoration work in 2010 exposed remnants of an early 14th century crucifixion scene above the rood beam over the chancel arch.

The bell-tower was added in either the 14th or the 15th century. Unusually the tower is built on columns erected inside the nave. 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 five bells, all of which were cast by Henry II Bagley of Chacombe, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

 in 1680. Holy Rood has also a Sanctus bell cast by Richard Keene of Burford
Burford
Burford is a small town on the River Windrush in the Cotswold hills in west Oxfordshire, England, about west of Oxford, southeast of Cheltenham and only from the Gloucestershire boundary...

 in 1674.

Both the chancel and the nave have pews with 15th century carved wooden bench ends. In the 18th century the south porch was built and the west gallery
West gallery music
West Gallery Music, also known as "Georgian psalmody" refers to the sacred music sung and played in English parish churches, as well as nonconformist chapels, from 1700 to around 1850...

 and wooden panelling inside the church were added. In 2010 the church roof was restored, re-using many of the original Stonesfield slates.

Pioneer balloon flight

James Sadler
James Sadler (balloonist)
James Sadler was the first English balloonist.Sadler was the second person to make a balloon ascent in England, very soon after the Tuscan Vincent Lunardi's flight on 15 September 1784 in the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company at Moorfields. Sadler made his ascent during the month after...

, the first English balloonist, landed near the village after his first ascent from Christ Church Meadow in Oxford on 4 October 1784. He had travelled a distance of about 6 miles (9.7 km) and reached a height of about 3600 feet (1,097.3 m).

Amenities

Woodeaton is a small village with no shop or public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

.

Woodeaton Wood is about 0.5 miles (804.7 m) southeast of the village, on the southwest side of Drun's Hill.
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