Britwell Salome 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 ...

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a planned move to Didcot, the district's largest town. The a ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

centred northeast of Wallingford. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 204.

Toponym

"Salome" is derived from the surname Sulham. There is a

Berrick Salome Berrick Salome is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England, about north of Wallingford. Since the 1992 boundary changes, the parish has included the whole of Roke and Rokemarsh (previously largely in the parish of Benson) an ...

about to the west, and a

Sulham Sulham is a village in West Berkshire, England. The larger village of Tidmarsh is adjacent to Sulham on the west side, with Tilehurst on the east side. Governance The two villages of Sulham and Tidmarsh share the combined civil parish council o ...

near

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...

Manor

Until 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 Con ...

of England, a Saxon called Wulfstan held the manor of Britwell, as well as three others in the area including Adwell. 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 ...

records that by 1086 Britwell had been granted to the Norman Miles Crispin, the first castellan of

Wallingford Castle Wallingford Castle was a major medieval castle situated in Wallingford in the English county of Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire), adjacent to the River Thames. Established in the 11th century as a motte-and-bailey design within an Anglo-Sa ...

Britwell Park

Britwell House was built in 1727–28 for Sir Edward Simeon. The architect is unknown but Simeon himself designed the oval

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

, added in 1769. In front of the house to the southeast is a freestanding neoclassical column, with a large stone urn as a finial. It was built for Sir Edward Simeon in 1764 as a monument to his parents. In Britwell Park, north of the house, is a limestone obelisk with a pineapple finial. It too was erected for Sir Edward Simeon in the middle of the 18th century. The house, monument and obelisk are all

Grade II* listed buildings In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Parish church

The Church of England parish church of Saint Nicholas was built early in the 12th century, and has a late 13th-century east window. In 1865–67 the church was

rebuilt ''Rebuilt'' is the second and final studio album by the American girl group Girlicious. The album was released on November 22, 2010, by Universal Music Canada. The album draws from the dance-pop genre while infusing hints of R&B. Production init ...

to designs by the Gothic Revival architect Charles Buckeridge. There was a church at Britwell Priors northeast of the village, but despite an objection from the Oxford Diocesan architect GE Street it was demolished, and Buckeridge re-used some of its materials in the rebuilding of St Nicholas. St Nicholas' parish is now part of the Benefice of Icknield, along with the parishes of

Pyrton Pyrton is a small village and large civil parish in Oxfordshire about north of the small town of Watlington and south of Thame. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 227. The toponym is from the Old English meaning "pear-tre ...

, Swyncombe and Watlington.

Amenities

The Red Lion pub was built late in the 18th or early 19th century. The Tithe Commissioners met here in 1841. It is now a

gastropub A gastropub or gastro pub is a pub that serves gourmet comfort food. The term was coined in the 1990s, though similar brewpubs existed during the 1980s. Etymology The term ''gastropub'' (derived from gastronomy) was coined in 1991, when David ...

. For a time it was called The Goose, which won a Michelin Star, and was owned by Paul Castle, but it ceased trading in July 2010. Since April 2012 the pub has traded again under its former name of the Red Lion. Britwell Salome

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

Club plays traditional, Sunday afternoon matches and occasional midweek fixtures. In 2014, it received much attention in local and national press as the subject of an unusual six-hitting ban. The club formerly competed in the Oxfordshire Cricket Association. Southeast of the village is Britwell Hill, which runs past the Ridgeway. There is a view of the Vale of Oxford looking down from the straight road that links the hill and the village.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Britwell Salome Parish Meeting
{{Authority control Civil parishes in Oxfordshire Villages in Oxfordshire