Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire
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Dorchester on Thames (or Dorchester-on-Thames) is a village and civil parish in
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 ...
, about northwest of Wallingford and southeast of Oxford. The town is a few hundred yards from the confluence of the River Thames and River Thame. A common practice of the scholars at Oxford was to refer to the river Thames by two separate names, with Dorchester on Thames the point of change. Downstream of the village, the river continued to be named ''The Thames'', while upstream it was named The Isis. Ordnance Survey maps continued the practice by labelling the river as "River Thames or Isis" above Dorchester, however, this distinction is rarely made outside the city of Oxford.


Etymology

The town shares its name with Dorchester in Dorset, but there has been no proven link between the two names. The name is likely a combination of a Celtic or Pre-Celtic element "-Dor" with the common suffixation "Chester" (
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 ...
: "A Roman town or Fort"). As Dorchester on Thames is surrounded on three sides by water (and may have been founded at the point where the river became navigable), it is likely the name is linked to the
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...
word for water "''dwfr''" (or "''dŵr''" as in modern Modern Welsh), giving a meaning of "''Fort on the Water''" or "''Water-town''". This etymology was known as early as 1545 when it was used by John Leland in his epic poem ''Cygnea Cantio'' ("Song of the Swan"). In the poem Leland refers to the town with a Greek translation, ''Hydropolis'' ( "Water-city"). There is no surviving record of the settlement's Latin name, and
Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
's reference to the town as "''Dorcic''" is otherwise unsupported.


History

The area has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic. In the north of the parish there was a Neolithic sacred site, now largely destroyed by gravel pits. On one of the Sinodun Hills on the opposite side of the Thames, a ramparted settlement was inhabited during the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Two of the Sinodun Hills bear distinctive landmarks of mature trees called
Wittenham Clumps Wittenham Clumps are a pair of wooded chalk hills in the Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham, in the historic county of Berkshire, although since 1974 administered as part of South Oxfordshire district. The higher of the two, ...
. Adjacent to the village is Dyke Hills which is the remains of an Iron Age hill fort. The Romans built a '' vicus'' here, with a road linking the settlement to a military camp at Alchester, 16 miles (25 km) to the north. In 634 Pope Honorius I sent a bishop called Birinus to convert the Saxons of the Thames Valley to Christianity. King Cynegils of Wessex gave Dorchester to Birinus as the seat of a new Diocese of Dorchester under a Bishop of Dorchester; the diocese was extremely large, and covered most of Wessex and Mercia. The settled nature of the bishopric made Dorchester in a sense the ''de facto'' capital of Wessex, which was later to become the dominant kingdom in England. Eventually
Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
displaced it, with the bishopric being transferred there in 660. Briefly in the late 670s Dorchester was once more a bishop's seat under Mercian control.Kirby ''Earliest English Kings'' p. 48-49 Dorchester again became the seat of a bishop in around 875, when the Mercian Bishop of Leicester transferred his seat there. The diocese merged with that of Lindsey in 971; the bishop's seat was moved to Lincoln in 1085. In the 12th century the church was enlarged to serve a community of
Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...
canons.
King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...
dissolved the Abbey in 1536, leaving the small village with a huge parish church.


Amenities

Dorchester Abbey is both the village's
Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...
and its main tourist attraction. The Abbey has a museum. Of the ten original coaching inns, two remain: The George and The White Hart. The George has a galleried yard dating back to 1495 and it used to serve coaches on the Gloucester-Oxford-London route. The George was used as a filming location for
ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
's '' Agatha Christie's Poirot'' in the episode '' Taken at the Flood'' in 2006.


Festivals and events

Dorchester on Thames is the home of a number of annual events: * The biennial Dorchester on Thames Festival, a 10-day fundraising event held every other May * The English Music Festival Nearby is Day's Lock on the Thames, where an annual "World Poohsticks Championship" is held.


Notable people

*
Jonty Hearnden Jonathan Philip "Jonty" Hearnden (born 1960 in Brentwood, Essex) is an English antiques expert and television presenter. Though born in London Road, Brentwood (his parents owned a toy shop and a gentlemen's outfitters in Shenfield until shortly ...
– auctioneer, antiques expert and television presenter * Mark Wright – footballer and former England captain *
Tom Penny Tom Penny (born 13 April 1977) is a professional skateboarder from Dorchester, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom (UK). As of January 2013, Penny is sponsored by the Flip skateboard deck brand and his Cheech & Chong signature deck is one of the ...
– professional skateboarder


References


Sources

* *Booth, P. (2014). A Late Roman Military Burial from the Dyke Hills, Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire. ''Britannia'' 45(4), 243–273. *Booth, P. (2012). ''The Discovering Dorchester-on-Thames project: A report on the excavations, 2007–2011''. Dorchester-on-Thames: Parochial Church Council, Abbey Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. *Dawson Tim, Falys, Mundin, Pine, Platt, Falys, Ceri, et al. (2017). ''The Southern Cemetery of Roman Dorchester-on-Thames'' (Monograph (Thames Valley Archaeological Services) ; 29). *Dickinson, T. (1974). ''Cuddesdon and Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire: Two early Saxon princely sites in Wessex'' (BAR British series ; 1). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. *Frere, S. (1964). ''Excavations at Dorchester on Thames, 1962''. London: Royal Archaeological Institute. *Gibson, A. (1992). POSSIBLE TIMBER CIRCLES AT DORCHESTER‐ON‐THAMES. ''Oxford Journal of Archaeology'', 11(1), 85–91. * * *Marshall, W. (2015). Dorchester-on-Thames, diocese of. ''The Oxford Companion to British History''. *Morrison, W., & Crawford, S. (2013). Re-assessing Toys in the Archaeological Assemblage: A Case Study from Dorchester-on-Thames. ''Childhood in the Past'', 6(1), 52–65. *Peveler, Edward C. (2016). Reassessing Roman ceramic building materials: Economics, logistics and social factors in the supply of tile to Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire. Arqueología De La Arquitectura, (13), ''Arqueología de la arquitectura'', 13. * *


External links

*
Virtual tour of Dorchester Abbey via Google Street View
{{authority control Villages in Oxfordshire Populated places on the River Thames Civil parishes in Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire District