Wootton 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

on the River Glyme about north of

Woodstock, Oxfordshire Woodstock is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish, north-west of Oxford in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. The United Kingdom Census 2021, 2021 census recorded a parish population of 3,521, up from t ...

. In recent years the village is sometimes referred to as Wootton-by-Woodstock to distinguish it from Wootton, Vale of White Horse. The 2011 census recorded the parish's population as 569. It is on the Akeman Street

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

and Oxfordshire Way long-distance footpath.

Name

The name was recorded as " ''Optone'' " in 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 A.D. * The Survey of English Place-Names records it was Wudutune in 958, Optone in 1086, Wuttona in 1163 and Wotton c.1180.*

Parish boundary

The parish is bounded to the west partly by the River Glyme, to the north partly by a stream that joins the River Dorn, to the south-east by the course of Akeman Street

, to the south-west by the pale of Blenheim Great Park and on other sides by field boundaries. It includes two deserted medieval villages: Dornford on the River Dorn, and Hordley on the River Glyme just downstream of the confluence of the Dorn and Glyme.

Parish church

The earliest parts of 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 ...

of Saint Mary are 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 ...

, north

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

and lower part of the tower, all of which date from the first half of the 13th century, and the south porch, which is Early English. In the 14th century the

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

and chancel arch were rebuilt and most of the windows in the building were replaced, all in a Decorated Gothic style. The upper part of the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

was added in the 15th century and the

clerestory A clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey; from Old French ''cler estor'') is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye-level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, a ''clerestory' ...

was added to the nave in the 16th century, each in 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-ce ...

style. The tower has a ring of six bells. Edward Hemins of Bicester cast the third, fourth and fifth bells in 1732 and the tenor bell in 1739. Abel Rudhall of Gloucester cast the second bell in 1749 and Mears & Stainbank of the

Whitechapel Bell Foundry The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells ...

cast the present treble bell in 1923. St. Mary's also has a Sanctus bell that Thomas Rudhall cast in 1778. The parish is now part of the

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 ...

of Wootton with Glympton and Kiddington.

Economic and social history

The

of 1086 records Wootton as the court of the hundred of Wootton. At the time of the Hundred Rolls in 1279 Hordley was recorded as having 19 households and of land. By the early part of the 16th century this had declined to only five (adult) residents. The Gregory family had converted most of the farmland from arable to pasture which would have done much to reduce the village population. The house at Hordley Farm, about southeast of Wootton, was built for the Gregory family in about 1500. It is arranged around three and a half sides of a quadrangle, possibly following the plan of an earlier medieval house on the same site. The kitchen fireplace and two of the doorways have four-centred arches that date from about 1500, and the north wing has two square-headed windows from the later 16th century. The ground-floor rooms have some 17th-century panelling. In 1750 the house was remodelled and a gazebo was built in the garden. In 1787 the Rev. Charles Parrott, sometime vicar of Saham Toney in

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, died leaving a bequest for a school to be founded and run in Wootton. Early in the 19th century further schools were added in Wootton, including one run by the rector. In 1836 a new building was completed to merge all education in the village into one school. The Rector, Rev. L.C. Lee, paid towards the cost of the site and gave capital and the income from several cottages to fund the new school. In 1942 it was reorganised as a junior school. It is now Wootton-by-Woodstock

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

Primary School. Wootton had two

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

s until 2008, when the King's Head closed.

Natural history

The parish includes Sheep's Banks, formerly known as Holly Bank, a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. There are two areas of lowland fens that are designated as "Priority Habitat Inventory" by Natural England. The largest of these is near the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of the River Glyme and River Dorn.

Amenities

The village has one public house, the Killingworth Castle Inn, which was built in 1637. It is now a gastropub that has won a Michelin ''Bib Gourmand'' and two AA rosettes. Wootton also has a village store.Wootton Stores
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References

Notes

Citations

Sources and further reading

* * * * * *

External links

Wootton by Woodstock
* {{Authority control Civil parishes in Oxfordshire Villages in Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire District