Little Tew
Encyclopedia
Little Tew is a village and civil parish about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) northeast of Chipping Norton and 8.5 miles (13.7 km) southwest of Banbury
in Oxfordshire
. The parish is bounded to the northwest by the River Swere and a road between Little Tew and Hook Norton
, to the north by a tributary of the River Cherwell
and to the south by an ancient drovers' road called Green Lane. The remaining parts of the parish bounds are field boundaries.
, Leofwine of Barton held the manor
of Little Tew along with those of Dunthrop, Duns Tew
and Westcott Barton
.
The Domesday Book
records that in 1086 Odo, Bishop of Bayeux held Little Tew. The manor was divided between three tenants: Wadard and Humphrey each had three and a half hides
and Ilbert de Lacy had two hides. On or before Odo's death in 1097 the tenants succeeded Odo as tenants-in-chief
, thus dividing Little Tew into three separate manors.
Wadard's lands were the beginnings of the barony of Arsic. In 1103 Manasser Arsic founded a priory
of the Benedictine
Abbey of Fécamp
at Cogges
and gave the priory an endowment including the Wadard manor at Little Tew. In 1441 Henry VI
seized the priory and its estates and gave them to Eton College
, which sold most of its land at Little Tew in 1921.
In 1206 Osney Abbey
acquired the Humphrey manor. In 1542 The Abbey was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries
but its manor at Little Tew was granted to the new Oxford Cathedral, which was Osney's former abbey church. However, in 1545 the seat of the Diocese of Oxford
was transferred from the former Osney Abbey to the former St. Frideswide's Priory
and the manor at Little Tew was returned to the Crown
. In 1565 the Crown gave the manor to Sir William Petre
, who in 1566 gave it to Exeter College, Oxford
.
The de Lacy manor at Little Tew became part of the Honour
of Pontefract
, in which it remained until Alice de Lacy died in 1348. By 1356 the manor was attached to the barony of Clifford Castle
in Herefordshire
.
, but no physical or definite documentary evidence is known to prove this. When the parish's common land
s were enclosed
in 1794, 16.5 acres (6.7 ha) of land were set aside for an income to fund church services but no church was built.
The first report of Baptists in Little Tew is from 1771 and one villager registered his house as an Anabaptist
meeting place in 1778. In 1829 a Baptist missionary from Chipping Norton applied for a licence to convert a building in Little Tew into a chapel, and Baptist services in Little Tew attracted about 100 people from the surrounding area. Exeter College offered to build and endow an Anglican church for Little Tew "to prevent alienation of the inhabitants from the Established Church". The Vicar of Great Tew did not support the idea but his successors held Anglican services in Little Tew, at first in a barn and later in the new village school that was built in 1836.
In 1845 the Baptists finally built a small chapel and in 1853 the Church of England
completed the chapel of Saint John the Evangelist, designed by the Gothic Revival architect
G.E. Street
in an early 14th century style. It has a tower with a gabled roof and a chime
of eight bells. St. John's was a chapel of ease
of the parish of Great Tew until 1857, when Little Tew was made a separate ecclesiastical parish. Today St. John's is once again part of a single benefice with the parish of Great Tew.
Street also designed the vicarage, completed in the same year as St. John's chapel. The vicarage was altered and enlarged firstly by Charles Buckeridge
in about 1869 and then by E.G. Bruton
in 1880.
The Baptist chapel was rebuilt in 1871, with a stepped gable
and Perpendicular Gothic style windows. A schoolroom was added in 1925 but both it and the chapel were sold in 1968. The building is now in private use.
in South Field. It may have been on the same site as a windmill recorded near Lodge Farm in 1742, south of the village on the road to Church Enstone. The mill seems to have disappeared by 1767.
The oldest building in the parish is the shell of a 14th century house. It was extended in the 16th century and is now internally reordered as two cottages but it retains its mediaeval screens passage
.
In 1767 the enclosure
of common land
s at Great Tew deprived Little Tew of some grazing land. Little Tew continued to farm under an open field system
until an Act of Parliament
enabled its lands to be enclosed in 1794.
A day school was founded in Little Tew in 1823. Exeter College supported it from 1830 and Eton College supported it from 1834. Exeter College also gave land on which a schoolhouse and master's house were built in 1836. In 1862-63 a new schoolhouse and master's house and set of three almshouse
s were built, all designed by Charles Buckeridge. The almshouses were never used as such but were sold for private use. The 1836 school building was converted into a house in 1867 and let to provide income for the school. In the 1900s the number of school pupils declined and in 1923 the school was closed.
Little Tew had a post office from 1881 until about 1975.
The Bell House was a public house
but is now a private house.
Little Tew village website
Banbury
Banbury is a market town and civil parish on the River Cherwell in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire. It is northwest of London, southeast of Birmingham, south of Coventry and north northwest of the county town of Oxford...
in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
. The parish is bounded to the northwest by the River Swere and a road between Little Tew and Hook Norton
Hook Norton
Hook Norton is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold Hills in Oxfordshire, England. It is northeast of Chipping Norton.-Toponym and early history:...
, to the north by a tributary of the River Cherwell
River Cherwell
The River Cherwell is a river which flows through the Midlands of England. It is a major tributary of the River Thames.The general course of the River Cherwell is north to south and the 'straight-line' distance from its source to the Thames is about...
and to the south by an ancient drovers' road called Green Lane. The remaining parts of the parish bounds are field boundaries.
Manor
Before the Norman conquest of EnglandNorman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
, Leofwine of Barton held the manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
of Little Tew along with those of Dunthrop, Duns Tew
Duns Tew
Duns Tew is a village and civil parish about south of Banbury in Oxfordshire. With nearby Great Tew and Little Tew, Duns Tew is one of the three villages known locally as "The Tews".-Origin of the name:...
and Westcott Barton
Westcott Barton
Westcott Barton, also spelt Wescot Barton or Wescote Barton, is a village and civil parish on the River Dorn in West Oxfordshire about east of Chipping Norton and about south of Banbury...
.
The Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
records that in 1086 Odo, Bishop of Bayeux held Little Tew. The manor was divided between three tenants: Wadard and Humphrey each had three and a half hides
Hide (unit)
The hide was originally an amount of land sufficient to support a household, but later in Anglo-Saxon England became a unit used in assessing land for liability to "geld", or land tax. The geld would be collected at a stated rate per hide...
and Ilbert de Lacy had two hides. On or before Odo's death in 1097 the tenants succeeded Odo as tenants-in-chief
Tenant-in-chief
In medieval and early modern European society the term tenant-in-chief, sometimes vassal-in-chief, denoted the nobles who held their lands as tenants directly from king or territorial prince to whom they did homage, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the clergy....
, thus dividing Little Tew into three separate manors.
Wadard's lands were the beginnings of the barony of Arsic. In 1103 Manasser Arsic founded a priory
Priory
A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...
of the Benedictine
Order of Saint Benedict
The Order of Saint Benedict is a Roman Catholic religious order of independent monastic communities that observe the Rule of St. Benedict. Within the order, each individual community maintains its own autonomy, while the organization as a whole exists to represent their mutual interests...
Abbey of Fécamp
Fécamp Abbey
Fécamp Abbey is a Benedictine abbey in Normandy, northern France.The abbey was the first producer of Bénédictine, a herbal liqueur, based on brandy.-First foundation:...
at Cogges
Cogges
Cogges is a district beside the River Windrush in Witney, Oxfordshire, east of the town centre. It had been a separate village and until 1932 it was a separate civil parish.-History:...
and gave the priory an endowment including the Wadard manor at Little Tew. In 1441 Henry VI
Henry VI of England
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realm was governed by regents. Contemporaneous accounts described him as peaceful and pious, not suited for the violent dynastic civil wars, known as the Wars...
seized the priory and its estates and gave them to Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, which sold most of its land at Little Tew in 1921.
In 1206 Osney Abbey
Osney Abbey
Osney Abbey or Oseney Abbey, later Osney Cathedral, was a house of Augustinian canons at Osney in Oxfordshire. The site is south of the modern Botley Road, down Mill Street by Osney Cemetery, next to the railway line just south of Oxford station. It was founded as a priory in 1129, becoming an...
acquired the Humphrey manor. In 1542 The Abbey was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
but its manor at Little Tew was granted to the new Oxford Cathedral, which was Osney's former abbey church. However, in 1545 the seat of the Diocese of Oxford
Diocese of Oxford
-History:The Diocese of Oxford was created in 1541 out of part of the Diocese of Lincoln.In 1836 the Archdeaconry of Berkshire was transferred from the Diocese of Salisbury to Oxford...
was transferred from the former Osney Abbey to the former St. Frideswide's Priory
Priory of St Frideswide, Oxford
The priory of St Frideswide, Oxford was established as a priory of Augustinian canons regular, in 1122. It was set up by Gwymund, chaplain to Henry I of England. It lasted to the 1520s, when it was dissolved by Cardinal Wolsey so that he could use its premises together with those of other adjacent...
and the manor at Little Tew was returned to the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
. In 1565 the Crown gave the manor to Sir William Petre
William Petre
Sir William Petre was a secretary of state to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.Educated as a lawyer at Oxford, he became a public servant, probably through the influence of the Boleyns, one of whom, George, he had tutored at Oxford and another of whom, Anne, was married to the king...
, who in 1566 gave it to Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
.
The de Lacy manor at Little Tew became part of the Honour
Honour (land)
In medieval England, an honour could consist of a great lordship, comprising dozens or hundreds of manors. Holders of honours often attempted to preserve the integrity of an honour over time, administering its properties as a unit, maintaining inheritances together, etc.The typical honour had...
of Pontefract
Pontefract
Pontefract is an historic market town in West Yorkshire, England. Traditionally in the West Riding, near the A1 , the M62 motorway and Castleford. It is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250...
, in which it remained until Alice de Lacy died in 1348. By 1356 the manor was attached to the barony of Clifford Castle
Clifford Castle
Clifford Castle is a castle in the village of Clifford which lies four miles to the north of Hay-on-Wye in the Wye Valley in Herefordshire, England .-Early Norman castle and planned settlement:...
in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
.
Church and chapel
There is a tradition that Little Tew had a mediaeval chapel before the English ReformationEnglish Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
, but no physical or definite documentary evidence is known to prove this. When the parish's common land
Common land
Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...
s were enclosed
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
in 1794, 16.5 acres (6.7 ha) of land were set aside for an income to fund church services but no church was built.
The first report of Baptists in Little Tew is from 1771 and one villager registered his house as an Anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
meeting place in 1778. In 1829 a Baptist missionary from Chipping Norton applied for a licence to convert a building in Little Tew into a chapel, and Baptist services in Little Tew attracted about 100 people from the surrounding area. Exeter College offered to build and endow an Anglican church for Little Tew "to prevent alienation of the inhabitants from the Established Church". The Vicar of Great Tew did not support the idea but his successors held Anglican services in Little Tew, at first in a barn and later in the new village school that was built in 1836.
In 1845 the Baptists finally built a small chapel and in 1853 the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
completed the chapel of Saint John the Evangelist, designed by the Gothic Revival architect
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
G.E. Street
George Edmund Street
George Edmund Street was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex.- Life :Street was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. George went to school at Mitcham in about 1830, and later to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839...
in an early 14th century style. It has a tower with a gabled roof and a chime
Chime (bell instrument)
A carillon-like instrument with fewer than 23 bells is called a chime.American chimes usually have one to one and a half diatonic octaves. Many chimes play an automated piece of music. Prior to 1900, chime bells typically lacked dynamic variation and the inner tuning required to permit the use of...
of eight bells. St. John's was a chapel of ease
Chapel of ease
A chapel of ease is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently....
of the parish of Great Tew until 1857, when Little Tew was made a separate ecclesiastical parish. Today St. John's is once again part of a single benefice with the parish of Great Tew.
Street also designed the vicarage, completed in the same year as St. John's chapel. The vicarage was altered and enlarged firstly by Charles Buckeridge
Charles Buckeridge
Charles Buckeridge was a British Gothic Revival architect who trained as a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott. He practiced in Oxford 1856–68 and in London from 1869. He was made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1861.-Work:Much of Buckeridge's work was for parish...
in about 1869 and then by E.G. Bruton
Edward George Bruton
Edward George Bruton was a British Gothic Revival architect who practiced in Oxford. He was made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1855 and a Fellow of the RIBA in 1861.-Work:...
in 1880.
The Baptist chapel was rebuilt in 1871, with a stepped gable
Crow-stepped gable
A Stepped gable, Crow-stepped gable, or Corbie step is a stair-step type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building...
and Perpendicular Gothic style windows. A schoolroom was added in 1925 but both it and the chapel were sold in 1968. The building is now in private use.
Economic and Social history
In the 13th century Little Tew had a windmillWindmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
in South Field. It may have been on the same site as a windmill recorded near Lodge Farm in 1742, south of the village on the road to Church Enstone. The mill seems to have disappeared by 1767.
The oldest building in the parish is the shell of a 14th century house. It was extended in the 16th century and is now internally reordered as two cottages but it retains its mediaeval screens passage
Great hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...
.
In 1767 the enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
of common land
Common land
Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...
s at Great Tew deprived Little Tew of some grazing land. Little Tew continued to farm under an open field system
Open field system
The open field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to as recently as the 20th century in some places, particularly Russia and Iran. Under this system, each manor or village had several very large fields, farmed in strips by individual families...
until an Act of Parliament
Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom
An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is a type of legislation called primary legislation. These Acts are passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster, or by the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh....
enabled its lands to be enclosed in 1794.
A day school was founded in Little Tew in 1823. Exeter College supported it from 1830 and Eton College supported it from 1834. Exeter College also gave land on which a schoolhouse and master's house were built in 1836. In 1862-63 a new schoolhouse and master's house and set of three almshouse
Almshouse
Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...
s were built, all designed by Charles Buckeridge. The almshouses were never used as such but were sold for private use. The 1836 school building was converted into a house in 1867 and let to provide income for the school. In the 1900s the number of school pupils declined and in 1923 the school was closed.
Little Tew had a post office from 1881 until about 1975.
The Bell House was a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
but is now a private house.
Little Tew village website