Worton is a hamlet

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

 in Cassington

Cassington

Cassington is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire about northwest of Oxford. The village lies on gravel strata about from the confluence of the River Evenlode with the River Thames. The parish includes the hamlet of Worton northeast of the village and the site of the former hamlet of...

 civil parish, 4.5 miles (7.2 km) northwest of Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

.

History

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 William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford

William Fitzosbern, 1st Earl of Hereford

William FitzOsbern , Lord of Breteuil, in Normandy, was a relative and close counsellor of William the Conqueror and one of the great magnates of early Norman England...

 owned 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 Worton, and that Roger d'Ivry

Roger d'Ivry

Roger d'Ivry or d'Ivri was an 11th century nobleman from Ivry-la-Bataille in Normandy. He took part in William of Normandy's conquest of England in 1066 and founded the Abbey of Notre-Dame-d'Ivry in 1071...

 and Robert D'Oyly

Robert D'Oyly

Robert D'Oyly was a Norman nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror on the Norman Conquest, his invasion of England. He died in 1091.-Background:Robert was the son of Walter D'Oyly and elder brother to Nigel D'Oyly...

 were the Earl's feudal

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 tenants. However, the 1st Earl had died in 1071 and in 1075 his heir Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford

Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford

Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford , succeeded to the earldom of Hereford and the English estate of William Fitz-Osbern in 1071.- Disobeying King William :...

 had forefieted his lands for his part in the Revolt of the Earls

Revolt of the Earls

The Revolt of the Earls in 1075 was a rebellion of three earls against William I of England . It was the last serious act of resistance against William in the Norman Conquest.-Course:...

.> It therefore seems that d'Ivry and D'Oyly held the manor in chief between them.

By 1127 D'Oyly's share of Worton had passed to the church of St. George in Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle is a large, partly ruined Norman medieval castle situated on the west edge of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. The original moated, wooden motte and bailey castle was replaced with stone in the 11th century and played an important role in the conflict of the Anarchy...

. After 1536 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...

 it passed first to Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

Christ Church Cathedral is the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford, which consists of the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. It is also, uniquely, the chapel of Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford.-History:...

 and then in 1546 to Christ Church college

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

. Christ Church sold its land at Worton in the 1950s.

D'Ivry's share 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 Saint Valery

Saint-Valery-en-Caux

Saint-Valery-en-Caux is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A small fishing port and light industrial town situated in the Pays de Caux, some west of Dieppe at the junction of the D53, D20, D79 and the D925 roads...

. This share of Worton belonged to one of the Counts of Dreux early in the 12th century, passing to Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall

Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall

Richard of Cornwall was Count of Poitou , 1st Earl of Cornwall and German King...

 in 1237. Richard's son Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall

Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall

Edmund of Cornwall of Almain was the 2nd Earl of Cornwall of the 7th creation.-Early life:Edmund was born at Berkhamsted Castle on 26 December 1249, the second and only surviving son of Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall and his wife Sanchia of Provence, daughter of Ramon Berenguer, Count of Provence,...

 died childless in 1300 and there is no record of the overlordship of this half of Worton Manor after 1324.

When the poll tax was levied in 1377 Worton had almost as many inhabitants as Cassington. However, in preceding and subsequent centuries the hamlet has been considerably smaller than Cassington. A licenced 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...

, the Crown, was trading in Worton from the 1750s but had closed by 1796.