Lower Haddon: Church

A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 13, Bampton Hundred (Part One). Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1996.

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'Lower Haddon: Church', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 13, Bampton Hundred (Part One), (London, 1996) pp. 89. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol13/p89a [accessed 18 March 2024]

CHURCH.

No documentary evidence has been found for a parochial chapel at Lower Haddon, though a large, reportedly cruciform stone barn c. 360 yd. south of Lower Haddon Farm, demolished c. 1956 when its site was taken into Brize Norton airfield, featured lancet windows and crosses on the gables, and in the early 20th century was locally believed to have been a former chapel. (fn. 1) If so the absence of 16th-century documentation, in contrast with Bampton's other chapels, would suggest that it had been secularized before the Reformation, perhaps following late medieval depopulation; (fn. 2) the building was not marked on early 19th-century maps, however, and may simply have been a field barn built soon after Bampton's inclosure. (fn. 3)

Footnotes

  • 1. W. J. Monk, A Ramble in Oxon. [c. 1925], 43, 56: copy in Bodl. G.A. Oxon. 8° 1041; O.S. Map 6", Oxon. XXXVII (1884 edn.), s.v. Mill Barn; local inf.
  • 2. Above, intro.; cf. above, Chimney, church; below, Lew, churches.
  • 3. O.R.O., Bampton incl. award, plan VI; ibid. MS. d.d. Par. Bampton a 2 (R); cf. A. Bryant, Oxon. Map (1824); Blenheim Mun., shelf J4, box 20, release of Haddon estate 1844, neither confirming a cruciform plan.