Thenford is a village and civil parish about northwest of the market town of Brackley in West Northamptonshire, England, and east of Banbury in nearby

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 ...

. The 2001 Census recorded the parish population as 74. At the 2011 Census the population of the village remained less than 100 and is included in the civil parish of Middleton Cheney.

Archaeology

Traces have been found of a Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement east of the village. Neolithic artefacts found include four flint arrowheads and a fragment of a polished stone axe southeast of the village. Bronze Age artefacts found include a middle Bronze Age

palstave {{Short description, European Bronze Age axe A palstave is a type of early bronze axe. It was common in the middle Bronze Age in northern, western and south-western Europe. In the technical sense, although precise definitions differ, an axe is gener ...

and a late Bronze Age

hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...

at Thenford Hill Farm north of the village that included two swords, four spearheads, two rings and other bronze objects. Traces have been found also of an Iron Age settlement in the north of the parish on Arbury or Arberry hill. It was a fortified farmstead with a circular rampart in diameter. Fragments of Iron Age and Roman pottery have been found in the eastern part of the site. East of the village are the remains of an Iron Age settlement and Roman villa dating from 1st to the 4th centuries AD. The site was developed in four phases, with the villa itself being built about AD 300. It had six rooms, one of which had a fine Roman mosaic. Later extensions to the villa included a bath house. In the 1820s coins from the reigns of Tetricus (271–274) to Constans (''circa'' 323) were found in the walled garden of Thenford House. A few years later skeletons were found in the same garden. The villa site was excavated from 1971 to 1973. and is now a scheduled monument. The mosaic is preserved in Thenford House. Early in the 19th century a Roman funerary urn containing ashes was found in St Mary's parish churchyard. Nearby were found "a medal of Constans", plus tesserae suggesting that a building with a mosaic floor had been in the vicinity. Other

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

sites have been found in the parish. Before 1830 a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

cemetery was found west of the village. Seven skeletons and a number of earthenware vessels were found in a

barrow Barrow may refer to: Places England * Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria ** Borough of Barrow-in-Furness, local authority encompassing the wider area ** Barrow and Furness (UK Parliament constituency) * Barrow, Cheshire * Barrow, Gloucestershire * Barro ...

. The site has since been quarried, leaving no trace of the barrow. The only artefacts known to survive are one blackware vessel and an iron knife.

History

Thenford House, Thenford (geograph 3402220)

Thenford's name is derived from 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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for "Ford of the Thegns". Thenford Manor House was near the parish church. Its origin was medieval, and in the 18th century was described as party

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

. It was demolished probably when the current Thenford House was built.

Thenford House Thenford House, Thenford, Northamptonshire, England is an 18th-century country house built for Michael Wodhull, the bibliophile and translator. Wodhull's architect is unknown. The style is Palladian architecture, Palladian although with earlier R ...

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 ...

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

built between 1761 and 1765 for

Michael Wodhull Michael Wodhull (1740–1816) was an English book-collector and translator. Life The son of John Wodhull (1678–1754) of Thenford, Northamptonshire, by his second wife, Rebeccah (1702–1794), daughter of Charles Watkins of Aynhoe, he was born ...

. It is a Grade I listed building. It is currently the home of

Lord Heseltine Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served ...

. In its grounds is a large

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

that has become one of the most important private collections in the United Kingdom. It is open to the public four times a year. Thenford had a watermill west of the village and a windmill on a mound north of the village. The watermill was demolished in the 20th century but traces of its foundations, leat and mill pond survive. The windmill mound was about in diameter and still existed in 1947. It has since been destroyed. An

open field system The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acre ...

of farming prevailed in Thenford until the 18th century. Traces of ridge and furrow can be traced in much of the parish, and especially from the air. Parliament passed an Inclosure Act for the parish in 1766.

Parish church

The

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 ...

Saint Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

was built in about 1200, extensively rebuilt in about 1300 and has a

Perpendicular Gothic Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-c ...

west tower and chancel screen. The south arcade is of two

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

. The north arcade is of three bays and was built about 1300. The east window of the north aisle has fragments of early 15th-century

Medieval stained glass Medieval stained glass is the coloured and painted glass of medieval Europe from the 10th century to the 16th century. For much of this period stained glass windows were the major pictorial art form, particularly in northern France, Germany and ...

representing

St Christopher Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius (reigned 249–251) or alternatively u ...

, and

St Anne According to Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come o ...

with St Mary. Also in the north aisle is an early 17th-century monument to Fulk Woodhull, who died in 1613. He is represented by a recumbent stone effigy in a recess framed by composite order columns. St Mary's north porch was rebuilt in 1885. The church is a Grade I listed building. St Mary's parish is a member of the Chenderit

Benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

, which includes the parishes of Chacombe,

Greatworth Greatworth is a village in the civil parish of Greatworth and Halse about north-west of Brackley, West Northamptonshire, England. The parish also includes the hamlet of Halse. In 2011, the settlement had a population of 708. The 2011 Census ...

Marston St. Lawrence Marston St. Lawrence is a village and civil parish about northwest of Brackley in Northamptonshire. A stream flows through the village and another forms the southern boundary of the parish. The two merge as Farthinghoe Stream, a tributary of t ...

, Middleton Cheney and Warkworth.

References

Sources

* *

External links

* {{Authority control Civil parishes in Northamptonshire Villages in Northamptonshire West Northamptonshire District