A History of the County of Oxford (Victoria County History, Vol. XIV): Witney and its Townships; Bampton Hundred (Part II)

Abstract

Witney is well worth the honour of its own Victoria County History (VCH) volume. It was the centre of a major (thirty hide) Anglo-Saxon estate which was given to the bishop of Winchester in 1044, whose successors remained its lords almost continuously until 1862. This early grant determined Witney's future in more ways than one. Thus, it included not just Witney itself but also the neighbouring settlements of Curbridge, Crawley and Hailey; and their secular and ecclesiastical government long depended on Witney. Not until 1854 did Hailey-cum-Crawley become a separate church parish and Curbridge has never won ecclesiastical independence. This volume gives good accounts of the satellite settlements; though it is awkward that one neighbouring (and important) village, Cogges, which reaches almost to the heart of Witney, had to be described in a different VCH volume. At least from the early twelfth century there was an episcopal residence at...