Draycot is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

on the

River Thame The River Thame is a river in Southern England. A tributary of the River Thames, the river runs generally south-westward for about from its source above the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury to the Thames in south-east Oxfordshire. Course Thr ...

, in the civil parish of Tiddington-with-Albury, in the South Oxfordshire district, in the county of

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

, England. It is situated approximately 4½ miles to the west of

Thame Thame is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of the city of Oxford and southwest of Aylesbury. It derives its name from the River Thame which flows along the north side of the town and forms part of the county border wi ...

. In 1881 it had a population of 17. The name derives from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''dræg'' (a slipway or drag, a sledge, or a dray), with ''cot'' (a cottage or shelter). After the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

the

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

was Richard, son of Rainfrid de Bretteville whilst Milo of Wallingford was

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as op ...

. In 1086, the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

recorded Draycot as having seven households (five villager and two slave). There were two ploughlands, one lord's plough team, one men's plough team, and a ten acre meadow. In 1886 the hamlet was incorporated into Waterstock civil parish, and subsequently in 1954 transferred to Tiddington-with-Albury, reducing Waterstock to 903 acres.'Parishes: Waterstock', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 7, Dorchester and Thame Hundreds, ed. Mary Lobel (London, 1962), pp. 220-230. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol7/pp220-230 ccessed 7 December 2022/ref>

References

Hamlets in Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire District {{Oxfordshire-geo-stub