West Challow 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 west of the

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

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 ...

. The village is on Childrey Brook, which is a tributary of the

River Ock The River Ock is a small English river which is a tributary of the River Thames. It has as its catchment area the Vale of White Horse, a low-lying and wide valley in south Oxfordshire, and flows into the River Thames, at Abingdon on the reach ...

. West Challow was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 184.

Etymology

The

place-name Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

''Challow'' is first attested in a charter of 947 (though the earliest surviving copy of the charter is twelfth-century) in the

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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...

phrase "to Ceawan Hlewe", which can straightforwardly be translated as "to Ceawa's burial mound",Victor Watts, ''The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 124. where ''Ceawa'' is a personal name attested only here and in the place-name ''Chawridge''.Richard Coates,
On Some Controversy Surrounding ''Gewissae'' / ''Gewissei'', ''Cerdic'' and ''Ceawlin''
, ''Nomina'', 13 (1989–90), 1–11.John Insley, 'Britons and Anglo-Saxons', in ''Kulturelle Integration und Personennamen im Mittelalter'', ed. by Wolfgang Haubrichs, Christa Jochum-Godglück (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), §4. The name appears as ''Ceveslane'' (considered to be a mis-spelling of ''Ceveslaue'') in 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 manus ...

of 1086. Thirteenth-century variants included ''Chaulea'', ''Chaulauhe'', ''Chawelawe'' and ''Shawelawe''. The "West" element in the name, added to distinguish West Challow from East Challow, is first found in 1284 (in such forms as ''Westcha(e)lawe'' and ''Weschallawe'').

Parish church

The Church of England parish church of

Saint Laurence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roma ...

is part of the Benefice of Ridgeway, along with the parishes of

Childrey Childrey is a village and civil parish about west of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse. The parish was part of the Wantage Rural District in Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The 2 ...

Kingston Lisle Kingston Lisle is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, England, about west of Wantage and south-southeast of Faringdon. The parish includes the hamlet of Fawler, about west of Kingston Lisle village. The 2011 Census record ...

Letcombe Bassett Letcombe Bassett is a village and civil parish about southwest of the market town of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The 2011 Ce ...

Letcombe Regis Letcombe Regis is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The village is on Letcombe Brook at the foot of the Berkshire ...

and Sparsholt.

Canal

The course of the former

Wilts & Berks Canal The Wilts & Berks Canal is a canal in the historic counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire, England, linking the Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington near Melksham, to the River Thames at Abingdon. The North Wilts Canal merged with it to become a ...

passes through the parish, skirting the south side of the village. It was extended eastwards from

Longcot Longcot is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse District. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. The village is about south of Faringdon and about northeast of Shrivenham. The ...

to Challow in 1807 and was completed to the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

at Abingdon in 1810. The Wilts & Berks carried small amounts of canal cargo through Challow until at least 1895–96. Traffic on the canal had virtually ceased by 1901 and the route was formally abandoned in 1914. The Wilts & Berks Canal Trust is currently restoring the canal.

Manor of Challow

The Manor of Challow was granted by King Henry I to Robert Achard between 1107 and 1118, and passed later to Sir William Forster who held it in the early 17th century. Manor Farm is a Grade II* listed Queen Anne building with much older inclusions which is currently used to provide bed and breakfast accommodation.

References

Sources

* * *

External links

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