Little Faringdon 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 ...

West Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire is a local government district in northwest Oxfordshire, England, including towns such as Woodstock, Burford, Chipping Norton, Charlbury, Carterton and Witney, where the council is based. Area The area is mainly rural downland ...

, about north of

Lechlade Lechlade () is a town at the southern edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England, south of Birmingham and west of London. It is the highest point at which the River Thames is navigable, although there is a right of navigation that contin ...

in neighbouring

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. The 2001 Census recorded its population as 63.

Manor

In the late Anglo-Saxon era Little Faringdon was part of a large estate that included

Faringdon Faringdon is a historic market town in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England, south-west of Oxford, north-west of Wantage and east-north-east of Swindon. It extends to the River Thames in the north; the highest ground is on the Ridg ...

(formally Great Faringdon), from which it took its name. The manor was one of several in the area granted to the Cistercian Beaulieu Abbey as part of its Faringdon estate by a charter of 1203 or 1204. Beaulieu held its estates until it had to surrender them to

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 ...

in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The manor was then held by the Bourchier and Perrott families. In about 1860 it was sold to

Charles Ponsonby, 2nd Baron de Mauley Charles Frederick Ashley Cooper Ponsonby, 2nd Baron de Mauley (12 September 1815 – 24 August 1896), was a Peerage, British peer and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician. Ponsonby was the son of the first William Ponsonby, 1st Baron de Mauley, ...

, whose descendants hold it today. Until the 20th century Little Faringdon was an estate village. In 1910 the

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

owned almost all the houses.

Local government

Little Faringdon was historically a township of the parish of Langford, which until the 13th century was in Oxfordshire. For the next six centuries it was an exclave of Berkshire, until the

Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. 61), which came into effect on 20 October 1844, was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which eliminated many outliers or exclaves of counties in England and Wales for civil purposes. ...

returned it to Oxfordshire. In 1864 Little Faringdon was made a separate

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

and in 1866 a separate civil parish. Since the 1974 boundary changes it has been part of

District. The parish has a

parish meeting A parish meeting, in England, is a meeting to which all the electors in a civil parish are entitled to attend. In some cases, where a parish or group of parishes has fewer than 200 electors, the parish meeting can take on the role of a parish cou ...

, but no parish council.

Parish church

The parish church is

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

, built in the 12th century as a dependent chapelry of Langford. It has Norman lancet windows in 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 ...

. In about 1200 the church was enlarged with the addition of a north

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 ...

. The

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...

between 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 ...

and north aisle is in a transitional style between Norman and

Early English 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 ...

. In the 14th century the porch and south door were added. A south aisle seems to have been added at about the same time but has since been lost. In about 1500 two Perpendicular Gothic clerestory windows were added to south side of the nave. The west window of the nave is also a late

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

Perpendicular Gothic addition. The church became the parish church when Little Faringdon became a separate parish in 1864. The

vicarage A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage. Function A clergy house is typically ow ...

to the south of the church was designed by the Gothic Revival architect

William Butterfield William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy. Biography William Butterfield was born in Lon ...

and completed in 1867. The church's original dedication is unknown. In 2000 it was dedicated to St Margaret of England. The church is 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 ...

. The parish is now part of the Benefice of Shill Valley and Broadshire, which includes also the parishes of Alvescot,

Black Bourton Black Bourton is a village and civil parish about south of Carterton, Oxfordshire. The village is on Black Bourton Brook, a tributary of the River Thames. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 266. RAF Brize Norton adjoins the par ...

, Broadwell, Broughton Poggs,

Filkins ''For people with the surname, see Filkins (surname).'' Filkins is a village in the civil parish of Filkins and Broughton Poggs, about southwest of Carterton in Oxfordshire. Church and chapel Church of England The Gothic Revival architect ...

, Holwell,

Kelmscott Kelmscott is a village and civil parish on the River Thames in West Oxfordshire, about east of Lechlade in neighbouring Gloucestershire. Since 2001 it has absorbed Little Faringdon, which had been a separate civil parish. The 2011 Census reco ...

, Kencot, Langford,

Shilton Shilton may refer to: Places *Shilton, Oxfordshire, England *Shilton, Warwickshire, England **Shilton railway station, a former station Other *Shilton (surname) *Earl Shilton, a town in Leicestershire, England *Chilton (disambiguation) *Shelton ( ...

and Westwell.

Gallery

File:LittleFaringdon StMargaret PairedLancet.JPG, St Margaret's parish church: paired lancet windows in Norman opening File:LittleFaringdon StMargaret NorthArcade EastArch.jpg, St Margaret's parish church: west arch of south arcade, with corbelled

respond A respond is a half-pier or half-pillar that is bonded into a wall and designed to carry the springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishi ...

on west side File:LittleFaringdon StMargaret NorthDoor inside.JPG, St Margaret's parish church: blocked Norman north doorway in north aisle File:LittleFaringdon StMargaret VizardMonument.JPG, St Margaret's parish church:

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

to Margaret Vizard, died 1833

References

Sources

* *

External links

{{Authority control Villages in Oxfordshire Civil parishes in Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire District