Hardwick is a village in the

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 ...

of Hardwick with Tusmore about north of

Bicester Bicester ( ) is a historical market towngarden town and civil parish in the Cherwell district of northeastern Oxfordshire in Southern England that also comprises an eco town at North-East Bicester and self-build village aGraven Hill Its loca ...

in Oxfordshire.

Manor

The village's

toponym 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 ...

comes 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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...

for a farm or dwelling place for sheep. 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 records it as ''Hardewich'' and a charter from AD 1130 records it as ''Herdewic''. After the Norman Conquest of England

Walter Giffard Walter Giffard (April 1279) was Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York. Family Giffard was a son of Hugh Giffard of Boyton in Wiltshire,Greenway Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6: York: Archbishops' a royal justice, ...

held the manor of Hardwick, but the

records that by 1086 he had given it to

Robert D'Oyly Robert D'Oyly (also spelt Robert D'Oyley de Liseaux, Robert Doyley, Robert de Oiley, Robèrt d'Oilly, Robert D'Oyley and Roberti De Oilgi) was a Norman nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror on the Norman conquest, his invasion of Engl ...

in an exchange of lands. It descended with D'Oyly's heirs until 1232 when it passed to

Thomas de Beaumont, 6th Earl of Warwick Thomas de Beaumont, 6th Earl of Warwick (1208 – 26 June 1242), Earl of Warwick, Baron of Hocknorton (Hook Norton) and Hedenton, was the son of Henry de Beaumont, 5th Earl of Warwick and Margaret D'Oili. He was also known as Thomas de H ...

. William Fermor of Somerton bought a third of the manor of Hardwick in 1514 and had acquired the remainder by 1548. The house at Manor Farm was built late in the 16th century. The Fermors usually let it to tenant farmers. It is now a

Grade II* listed building 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 Ir ...

. Some of the farmland in the parish seems to have been

enclosed Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

in the 16th century for sheep pasture, but there was still 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 acr ...

of three fields by 1601. By 1682 parts of Heath Field and Mill Field had been enclosed, and by 1717 the enclosure of Heath Field was complete. Enclosure of the remainder of the parish was complete well before 1784, when Tinker's Field and the remainder of Mill Field were described as having been enclosed ''"from time immemorial"''. In 1857 Henry Howard, 2nd Earl of Effingham bought the estates of Tusmore and Hardwick. In 1869–70 he demolished the old cottages of the village and replaced them with new ones of stone with brick

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

. He built a village school which was finished in 1873, and his heir Henry Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham maintained the school until at least 1895. However, the 3rd Earl died in 1898 and by 1903 the school had closed. It is now a private house.

Church and chapel

Parish church

By the middle of the 12th century the parish was a chapelry of Stoke Lyne, and by 1249 or 1250 Hardwick had become a separate ecclesiastical parish. The

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

owned the

advowson Advowson () or patronage is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop (or in some cases the ordinary if not the same person) a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living ...

by 1252, and held it until Henry VIII suppressed the Order in England in 1540. In 1545

The Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

sold the advowson to an associate of William Fermor, the lord of the manor. The advowson remained with the Fermors until the middle of the 19th century, when their direct line died out and their estates at Tusmore and Hardwick were sold. The earliest parts of the Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin are the north and south doorways. Dr Mary Lobel says the doorways are from late in the 12th or early in the 13th century, but Sherwood and Pevsner states they are

Decorated Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...

which would give them a later date of 1250–1350. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

is Decorated Gothic and certainly from the 14th century. The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was rebuilt in the 15th century with a large new Perpendicular Gothic west window. In 1877 Henry Howard, 2nd Earl of Effingham commissioned George Gilbert Scott, Jr. to restore the church. Scott virtually rebuilt it and added the south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

, porch and bell-turret. The east window of the chancel has some 14th-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 ...

plus a 19th-century Gothic Revival panel by

Clayton and Bell Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient British workshops of stained-glass windows during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton (1827–1913) and Alfred Bell (1832 ...

. The Gothic Revival west window of the nave is by

Burlison and Grylls Burlison and Grylls is an English company who produced stained glass windows from 1868 onwards. The company of Burlison and Grylls was founded in 1868 at the instigation of the architects George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. Both John Bu ...

but incorporates late 15th- or early 16th-century Gothic panels. St Mary's is now a member of the Shelswell Benefice.

Roman Catholic chapel

The Fermors were

recusants Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

and supported the continuation of Roman Catholicism in the area from the English Reformation in the 16th century until after the

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 (31 George III, c. 32) is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1791 relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities. It admitted Catholics to the practice ...

. Late in the 16th century and early in the 17th there were few recusants in Hardwick, but after the Fermors moved from Somerton to Tusmore in 1625 their numbers increased. Roman Catholics formed more than half the village by the 1760s and the overwhelming majority by 1802. Roman Catholic villages went to

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

at the Fermor chapel in Tusmore until 1768, when Tusmore House was being rebuilt and the chapel was closed for refurbishment. A chapel was then established in the attic of Hardwick Manor Farm, which remained in use for worship until the priest died in 1830. The chapel was succeeded in 1832 by a newly built Roman Catholic church at Hethe, just over east of Hardwick.

Manor

Church and chapel

Parish church

Roman Catholic chapel

References

Sources and further reading

External links