Long Wittenham
Long Wittenham is a village and small civil parish about north of Didcot, and southeast of Abingdon. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it from Berkshire to Oxfordshire, and from the former Wallingford Rural District to the new district of South Oxfordshire.
Geography
The village is on the outside of a meander in the River Thames, on slightly higher ground than the flood plain around it. The river navigation follows Clifton cut, not the meander. About to the east, across the river, is the Roman town of Dorcic – now Dorchester-on-Thames. To the south-east are neighbouring Little Wittenham which has a much smaller population but much larger area and within which parish is Wittenham Clumps, also called the Sinodun Hills.History
The village is supposedly named after a Saxon chieftain, named Wikki, but there is evidence of earlier settlement. Bronze Age double-ditch enclosures and middle Bronze Age pottery were identified in the 1960s, and early Bronze Age items, such as an axe and spearhead, have been found in the Thames. Later settlement evidence is more extensive: Iron Age and Roman presence is indicated by trackways, various buildings, burials, and pottery and coins. There is also evidence of possible Frankish settlement: a 5th-century grave that contained high-status Frankish objects. This early habitation was first revealed in the 1890s, in the first ever use of cropmarks to discern archaeological remains. In 2016, on land owned by Sylva Foundation, an Anglo-Saxon building was excavated by Oxford University School of Archaeology.The core of the village emerges from the Saxon ara. 6th century cropmarks outline a large group of buildings, which indicate, if not a royal palace, then certainly a high status Saxon enclosure, and the variety and number of objects found in Saxon burial sites around the village would appear to support this. These large, Saxon burial sites also indicate a sizeable population that lasted for many years. Historians now recognise that the general area of southern Oxfordshire was the heartland of the Gewisse. The nearness to the Iron Age hillfort of Wittenham Clumps and the Roman town of Dorchester show that the localised area was of great importance for many centuries, although the notion that Witta were related to the later Royal House of Wessex, is unproven.
The Domesday Book of 1086 records the village in one of two entries for Wittenham identifiable as this part of the modern village by government-registered manorial descent, and is buried in the churchyard. His last book, Till I end my Song, is based on his life in the village.
In the late 1930s the University of Oxford based its Institute for Research in Agricultural Engineering at College Farm, which moved to York in 1942. The property was subsequently managed as a commercial farm although some buildings gradually fell into dereliction. In 1992 a large proportion of the farmland, which had been sold the year before, was donated to the Northmoor Trust to establish a new research woodland called Paradise Wood, created and managed by Gabriel Hemery. In 2013, 20 hectares of the remainder of the farmland, including the redundant buildings, was gifted to another charity the Sylva Foundation. In 2016 the charity moved its main office to the site and established the Sylva Wood Centre, which provides a hub for small businesses and craftspeople who design, innovate or make in wood. In 2017 the Sylva Foundation created the Wittenhams Community Orchard and Future Forest on surrounding land.
Buildings
The base of the village preaching cross dates from the 7th century. Saint Birinus preached here when he brought Christianity to the area.The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary, begun around 1120, is on the site of a previous Saxon church. The chancel arch survives from the Norman building; the aisles and tower are later additions. The font is a rare Norman lead one; it was later encased in wood, and this preserved it from iconoclastic Parliamentarian soldiers in the 17th century. The church has the smallest monument in England a small stone effigy of Gilbert de Clare. Cruck Cottage can be architecturally dated to being around 800 years old and consequently locals have claimed it may be the oldest house in South Oxfordshire. English art scholar and typography expert Nicolete Gray is buried in the graveyard at the church.
The building housing Pendon Museum is a model railway interactive museum set up by Roye England. Its site was The Three Poplars public house. Declining trade forced its sale in 1954 and for a time it traded as a Youth Hostel, being close to the North Wessex Downs and the Thames Path.
Other pubs include The Plough, and The Vine. North of the village is the Barley Mow Inn, which is closer to Clifton Hampden but is on the Wittenham side of the parish boundary. The Machine Man was disfranchised in 2003.
A Methodist chapel was built in 1820, and later converted into a butcher's, a general store, and a Post Office. It was disfranchised in 2006 and is now a private house.
The Sylva Wood Centre provides a hub for small businesses and craftspeople who design, innovate or make in wood, including incubation facilities for new businesses linked with City of Oxford College.
Amenities
The village has a sports club: Long Wittenham Athletics Club, which is based at Bodkins Field. This and other flat fields around the village have often been used as impromptu landing sites by hot-air balloonists.The village has an annual fete. It used to take place at the Vicarage until the mid-1990s, when it was relocated to The Plough Inn grounds.
Beyond the eastern edge of the village is Neptune Wood, planted in 2005 as one of 33 British Trafalgar Wood commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.
The Wittenhams Community Orchard and Future Forest were created by Sylva Foundation in 2017 on land to the south of the village, providing public access via a network of permitted paths.