Andersey Island
Andersey Island is a 273-acre (110.5 ha) area of
Location
The island is created by a natural anabranch (a corollary, specifically a meander cutoff) of the river, the Swift Ditch. Today it is a backwater and since at least the 1800s has been weir-controlled. It comprises 273 acres (1.10 km2) and is the fifth largest island of the river including the outer reaches of its estuary, discounting the area south of the Jubilee River, a channel opened in 2004.[1]
History and uses
- History
Andersey in Old English and Middle English means Andrew's island.[2]
The island was the site of a royal residence in
The destroyed palace of sorts was assumed by the Normans and used as a hunting lodge by
Henry was persuaded by Queen Maud to return the island to Abingdon's ownership but not parish and to allow the abbot to use the lead from its houses for the roof of the abbey church. A late medieval chronicle indicates that the stone buildings on the island were already in decay.[3]
An Oxford-Burcot Commission was established by Acts of 1605 and 1624 to improve the river between Oxford and Burcot. The commission did not make use of the mainstream western meander of the river via Abingdon; instead barges was directed along the backwater between Andersey and Culham Hill, known in early Tudor times as Purden's stream.[2]
- Present use
Most of the island is open land of grass, marsh reeds, poplars and willows. In man-made uses it contains a football club, a cricket club, a leisure facility, barns and cottages.
See also
References
- ^ OS 25-inch-to-mile map of Oxfordshire of 1897, sheets XLV.16, XXXII.10 and XXXIX.2 published 1898
- ^ a b c d e f 'Parishes: Culham', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 7, Dorchester and Thame Hundreds, ed. Mary Lobel (London, 1962), pp. 27-39. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol7/pp27-39 [accessed 16 December 2017].
- ^ Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. J. Stevenson (2 vols., Rolls Series, 1858)