Ardington is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

about east of

Wantage Wantage () is a historic market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire since 1974. T ...

in the

Vale of White Horse The Vale of White Horse is a local government district of Oxfordshire in England. It was historically a north-west projection of Berkshire. The area is commonly referred to as the 'Vale of ''the'' White Horse'. It is crossed by the Ridgeway N ...

. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. Since 2012 responsibility for Ardington and the neighbouring parish of Lockinge has been combined in a joint single parish council for

Ardington and Lockinge Millennium sundial in Ardington and Lockinge community woodland Ardington and Lockinge are two civil parishes in the Vale of White Horse district, centred about east of Wantage, Oxfordshire, that share a single parish council. The two parishes w ...

Geography and economy

Ardington is a downland village, with its parish stretching from the loam rich north to the chalk downlands to the south. The ancient path of the Ridgeway runs through the southern part of the parish, along the North Wessex Downs AONB section of the route. Racing stables are beside and around the village most of which use the Downs for gallops. Being set in the Lockinge Estate, most of Ardington parish and nearby of East and West Lockinge are owned by Thomas Loyd and managed by Adkin Rural and Commercial. Local amenities include a public house - The Boar's Head, a sports club, village store, post office and tearoom, and the Loyd-Lindsay Rooms - a set of rooms which are let out to the community and on a commercial basis for weddings, parties and conferences. Local charities can use the rooms to hold events to raise money.

Architecture

The oldest part of the Church of England parish church of Holy Trinity is the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

arch, built about 1200. The Gothic Revival architect Joseph Clarke added the tower and spire in 1856.

Somers Clarke George Somers Clarke (1841–1926) was an architect and English Egyptologist who worked on the restoration and design of churches and at a number of sites throughout Egypt, notably in El Kab, where he built a house. He was born in Brighton. A ...

remodelled the remainder of the church in 1887. Ardington House was built for Edward Clarke in 1721 and has three tall storeys and seven window bays in breadth, not being deep, almost rectangular. It has small wings without bays to each side (alternatively the entire front range can be described as projecting) topped by a classical triangular

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

framing a weathered mid-19th century coat of arms in stone (

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...

). Its windows and central door are faced in complementary coloured brickwork dressings to its general grey brick façade. It is a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

Grade II* listed building and is open to the public in the summer months.Ardington House: Public Opening
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References

Sources

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External links

* * Villages in Oxfordshire Civil parishes in Oxfordshire Vale of White Horse {{Oxfordshire-geo-stub