Berrick Salome

Coordinates: 51°38′38″N 1°06′14″W / 51.644°N 1.104°W / 51.644; -1.104
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Berrick Salome
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townWallingford
Postcode districtOX10
Dialling code01865
PoliceThames Valley
FireOxfordshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
WebsiteBerrick and Roke Village Website
List of places
UK
England
Oxfordshire
51°38′38″N 1°06′14″W / 51.644°N 1.104°W / 51.644; -1.104

Berrick Salome

First World War, based on the recollections of elderly villagers. His study, which was published in 1968 as The Departed Village: Berrick Salome at the Turn of the Century, also included an introduction to local history. This provided much of the information for "A Village History" which appeared in The Berrick and Roke Millennium Book[3]
and is the major source for this article.

Toponym

Berewic is Old English for "barley farm"[4] and Salome is from the surname "Sulham". In the 13th century, Aymar de Sulham held the manor.[4] There is a Britwell Salome about 3 miles (5 km) to the east, and Sulham is a parish in Berkshire on the River Thames near Reading. Prior: Berrick Prior is the corn farm belonging to the Prior of Canterbury (see below: 'Middle Ages'). Liam Tiller gives early versions of the name as Berewiche (1086) and Berewick (1210, 1258).[5] Moreau quotes later versions found in The Place-names of Oxfordshire,[6] as Berrick Sullame (1571), Berwick Sallome (1737, 1797), and, by the time of the 1863 Inclosure Award, Berrick Salome. In fact, the modern spelling can be found much earlier: the 1830 OS one inch map, reproduced in Ditmas,[7] shows Berwick Salome, though in a smaller typeface than Berwick Prior.

Geography

Berrick seems to have been first settled because it had a reliable source of water. Springs rise to the north-east of the parish at the junction of the

Thames. Until the mains water was connected in the village, people in the northern part of Berrick drew their water from this brook, outside what is now the Chequers car park, leaning over a railing to scoop the water using what Moreau refers to as a "big dipper" which was kept on the bank there. He also notes that, as late as the 1960s, a resident of Berrick Littleworth could be seen crossing Back Street to draw water from a roadside brook flowing from Hillpit Spring.[9]

Parish Church

St Helen's from the northwest
The west end of St Helen's nave, showing the Romanesque font and 17th century west gallery
St Helen's 14th-century Decorated Gothic piscina and credence shelf

Church history

Roman road running east from Dorchester along which the churches of Shirburn, Pyrton, Cuxham, Brightwell Baldwin, Berrick Salome and Warborough all lie".[11] This road would have run through Hollandtide Bottom from Berrick to Brightwell. It has been suggested that, when St Helen's was built, there may have been houses grouped around the church,[10] and that the village centre may have moved later to the junction where the track along Hollandtide Bottom meets routes to Chalgrove, Newington, Warborough, and Benson
.

It is uncertain when the church was first established in Berrick but the fact that it is dedicated to

Norman conquest of England. The font has interlacing ornament of a style originating in Northumbria in the early days of English Christianity.[14] The architectural historians, Jennifer Sherwood and Nikolaus Pevsner describe the font as Norman,[15] while Liam Tiller comments, "It is surprising that such a high quality font should be found in such a small rural chapel", and suggests that it may have been brought to Berrick from a larger church, perhaps Chalgrove, at a later date.[5] Also, Moreau observes that Berrick church is not included in the Taylors' comprehensive work on Anglo-Saxon architecture.[16]

Inclosure Award of 1853, of Keame's Hedge Way which provided a short cut for the residents of Roke going to Berrick church.[10]

Also unusual is the story Moreau had from the Treasurer of Christ Church, Oxford, about the intervention, in 1853, by the vicar of Beckley, some 15 miles (24 km) away, who persuaded Christ Church to buy a plot of land to build a new church at Berrick Littleworth because "the present church at Berwick is very badly situated for the people at Berwick and very far from Roke".[19] No new church for Berrick was built and control of the land, in Berrick parish, was given to the incumbent of Benson until it was sold over a century later.[20] Perhaps the college preferred not to give control to the then Rector of Berrick, the radical Robert French Laurence, for fear that he would use the land to house the poor.

Church building

The church is 65 feet (20 m) long and the top of the

Saint Helen's has a timber-framed tower, much like that at Drayton St Leonard where there is a "low west tower with a pyramid roof and entirely timber-framed, unusual in Oxfordshire."[23] Waterperry also has a timber-framed tower[24] while Lyford parish church has a wooden bell turret.[25]

"A photograph of

John Taylor & Sons of Loughborough, Leicestershire cast the treble bell in 1836,[29] presumably at their then foundry in Oxford.[28]

Economic and social history

Middle Ages

The

lord of the Manor, while bordari [bordars or cottars] usually held smaller holdings, or cottages and surrounding plots only and owed heavy labour services obliging them to work on the lord's demesne",[31] and serfs, the lowest category, although they could not be sold as individuals, could be transferred with the land which they worked.[31]

The northern boundary was set in the early 11th century when a

peculiar[Note 1] of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the manor, which came to be called Berrick Prior, was taken into that parish,[34] as was Britwell Prior,[35] which seems to have been part of the same gift.[33] With its ecclesiastical connection came exemption from the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of Oxfordshire, and, even into the 20th century, it was still referred to, in some directories, as 'the Liberty of Berrick Prior',[36] although 'liberties' had been abolished in the 19th century. The transfer resulted in the northern boundary of Berrick Salome passing through the centre of the village and taking both the village pub and the village pond into Newington parish.[37]

The village boundaries seem to have developed haphazardly from the earliest times and remained complicated even after the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act 1882 which, locally, resolved only the position of some distant water meadows and invasive parts of Benson. A county-wide rationalisation in 1931[38] sorted out 'amongst others a patchwork of detached elements east of the village. Finally, in 1993, the four hamlets were unified within simple boundaries. Outside its eastern boundary, Berrick Salome parish included five exclaves, all beyond the Ewelme-Chalgrove road, in an area where there were also detached parts of both Benson and Ewelme parishes,[39] while the southern boundary used to wind around the houses in Roke and Rokemarsh so that most of the residents were in Benson.[40] Only the western boundary was relatively simple, but even there, the parish had once included water meadows on the River Thame, south-west of Newington and about 2 miles (3 km) from Berrick.[41] Within the boundaries, there were, in the centre of Berrick, midway between the Chequers and the southern fork, two houses and some plots of land which were detached parts of Benson parish.[42]

18th and 19th centuries

St Helen's parish church is the only significant building and, as the Rev George Villiers

Domesday Survey "as land of the church of Labatailge [Battle Abbey]".[46] Newton made "his first documented attempt to promote enclosure at Benson in 1807".[47]

Thomas Newton persisted for decades and, in 1827, promoted a Parliamentary Bill which other farmers opposed. The opposition was led by three substantial farmers: John Franklin of Ewelme, Edward Shrubb of Benson and John Hutchings of Berrick Salome; who were all concerned because "the common fields of Benson were so intermixed with those of Berrick and Ewelme that no measure could succeed unless it dealt with all three parishes."[48] The opposition was successful, largely thanks to the work of their lawyer, George Eyre, of another Ewelme farming family.[49] However the Bill was presented again every November at the start of each new parliamentary session, opposed on each occasion, and in November 1830, local farm workers took part in the Swing Riots which, though directed against enclosures, involved Luddite-style machine breaking. Some of the rioters were punished with transportation.[50]

It was not until 1852, after the death of Thomas Newton, that the Inclosure Act for Benson, Berrick Salome and Ewelme was finally passed,[51] and the Inclosure Commissioners then took another 11 years to make their Award. This must have affected nearly half the households in Berrick Salome, but Moreau found no impression that the change had disrupted village life.[52] And the Inclosure Award did provide two great benefits to the villagers. The first was the allotment of 3 acres, 2 roods and 25 poles (about 1.5 hectares) "unto the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor" of Berrick Salome "to be held by them and their successors in trust as a place for exercise and recreation for the inhabitants."[53] In Moreau's day the annual cricket match was still held on this field. In the 19th century and early 20th century when every Saturday afternoon in the cricket season there was a match and Berrick Salome 'never got beat' (according to one old man interviewed by Moreau in the 1960s).[54] The second was the allocation of 2 acres and 10 perches (about 0.84 hectares) to "the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor" of Berrick Salome "to be held by them and their successors in trust as an allotment for the labouring poor of the said parish."[53] If his family were not to go hungry, the now landless peasant needed his pig, his garden and his allotment. Until well into the 20th century, few of the rural poor had any employment opportunities other than that as farm labourers.

Another, and less welcome, feature of the Award was the declaration of several dozen traditional roads, ways and tracks (mainly crossing common land) as 'discontinued and stopped'.

Highway Board, with some disapproval.[58]

Rev. Robert French Laurence (1807–85), who was vicar of

social reformer who campaigned for better housing for the agricultural workers and had new thatched cottages built for them in 'the parish'[59] of Chalgrove, presumably, as the vicarage is in that parish. There was, for nearly 30 years, an infant school at Roke, funded by Christ Church, Oxford which held the advowson to the Chalgrove-cum-Berrick living. The school had closed by 1884,[20] after which the infants joined the older children walking to Benson School. Moreau records that boots for that purpose were provided[60] out of Mary White's bequest, a small charitable income left in 1729, to teach reading to the children of the poor in Berrick.[60] Within living memory infant classes were held in the Band Hut.[citation needed
]

Moreau recorded five licensed premises selling mainly beer to a local population of about 300 at the turn of the century.

off-licences.[62] The fifth was the Horse and Harrow pub[62] which, although in the centre of Rokemarsh, stood just outside the Berrick parish boundary. There were several small shops and post offices at different times; Moreau records that between 1890 and 1910 four different cottages hosted the Berrick post office.[63] His book includes photos of three of them, one of which is still known as The Old Post Office.[64]

20th century

Moreau reported that, at the turn of the century, an adult 'day man' [full-time adult worker] was paid about 12

First World War, brought about a steady decline in the number of farm labourers. As farms became more mechanised, young men sought other employment. Alison Reid writes "By 1930, the Morris car factories at Cowley, reached by bicycle and later by works bus, attracted workers from places as distant as Benson".[67] By 1938 five residents of Berrick were working at Morris Motors.[68] In 1930, the average weekly pay in the motor industry was £3.16s (£3.80),[69] whereas the base rate of pay for agricultural workers set by the Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act 1924 was £1 11s 8d (£1.58). Some rode motorcycles and bought their petrol from the shop next to the Chequers which at that time met most of the needs of the villagers.[citation needed
]

The village is still surrounded by farmland but, by the end of the century, there was only one working farm left in Berrick – Manor Farm – and that was run by the farmer and his wife. There are six other properties which still bear the names of the little farms which used to occupy their sites.

Second World War, indoor plumbing was introduced.[citation needed] At the turn of the Millennium, according to The Berrick and Roke Millennium Book, there were 18 houses in Berrick Prior, 46 in Berrick Salome, 40 in Roke, and 24 in Rokemarsh.[Note 3] The increase in population may be related to the building of the M40 motorway. The M40 was built from London to Stokenchurch in 1967, and extended through the Vale of Oxford in 1974.[71]
Thereafter, London was about an hour's journey away.

Other local trades also declined in the 20th century. As noted above, there were five

licensed premises in 1900. The Plough and Harrow (now Plough Cottage) and The Welcome closed early in the century, and the Horse and Harrow closed in 1988 after the death of its last landlord, Jim Austin, only a few years before the parish boundary change moved it into Berrick parish. The building is now a private house but retains the name Horse and Harrow. As Moreau mentions, there was a long series of post offices, and other small shops. The last, which closed in the 1980s, was a combined shop and post office in the annexe of the Chequers. Moreau includes a photo of The Chequers showing the shop fascia board,[72] and a drawing of the same view, by David Gentleman, appears as the heading to Moreau's chapter 12.[73] The former shop and post office is now the pub toilets. Another casualty of the same era was the garage at Woodbine Cottage in Roke, generally remembered only for a single derelict petrol pump that was removed in the 1980s. Janette Baker, now living in Rokemarsh, grew up in Roke, in the bungalow next door to Woodbine Cottage, and recalls passing "the garage" on her way home from the school bus.[74]

Queen Emma's gift had the incidental result of putting the Berrick village pond into Newington parish. In the 1930s, according to Moreau, "the person who had acquired the little properties to the north-east of the pond enclosed it [the pond]"[75] and, although the Berrick villagers objected strongly, only Newington had the right to challenge the enclosure under the Commons Act 1876. Newington apparently took no action.[76] In The Berrick and Roke Millennium Book, the owners of the house provide another view of the event. The three little properties had been combined into one by Alan Franklin in the mid-1930s and were sold to a Mrs Hills in 1936. "Rumour has it that she fenced in the drover's pond. However the Title Deeds quite clearly show the pond was included in the land transferred to her."[77]

Berrick Salome's population increased towards the end of the 20th century. The 1901 Census recorded 103 inhabitants,[78] the 1971 Census recorded 99,[79] but the 1981 Census recorded 152[80] and the 1991 Census recorded 163.[81] These census figures for both population and household numbers relate only to Berrick Salome parish within its pre-1993 boundaries. Moreau reckoned that "around 1900 there were about 75 households in the whole group of hamlets, 35 of them within the boundaries of Berrick Salome parish"[82] and "when I came to live in Berrick Salome in 1947 there were 28 households strictly within the boundaries of the parish, another 8 just outside them to the north in Berrick Prior, about 11 more in the Benson part of Roke, and 14 in Rokemarsh... 61 altogether".[83] He adds that "one block of three [one-up and one-down] cottages, now [in 1968] occupied by one old lady, is said to have at one time housed twenty people".[58] The number of households increased from 36 in the 1971 Census[79] to 52 in the 1981 Census[80] and to 56 in the 1991 Census.[81]

Acknowledgments

  • The late Mrs Irene Franklin – lifelong Berrick Prior resident who died early in 2013.
  • Susan Radice – Berrick Salome resident who, in 1999, researched the original 'Village History' for inclusion in The Berrick and Roke Millennium Book. Her work was added to Wikipedia in 2005 and forms a major source for this article.
  • Chris and Mary Whittle – former Berrick Salome residents

See also

  • "Britwell Prior". A Vision of Britain through Time. University of Portsmouth.

Notes

  1. ^ Chambers Concise 20th Century Dictionary (1985) defines a 'peculiar' as a parish exempt from the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop
  2. ^ MillenniumBook 1999: by reference to the stated occupations of residents of old cottages
  3. ^ MillenniumBook 1999: numbers of houses shown on the maps, with The Chequers and Hollandtide Cottage counted as Berrick Prior, and Roke Farm Cottages as Rokemarsh.

References

  1. ^ Miller 1971, p. 14.
  2. Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics
    . Retrieved 22 August 2015.
  3. ^ MillenniumBook 1999, pp. 9–12. (S Radice)
  4. ^ a b Pearman 1896[page needed]
  5. ^ a b c d Tiller, L. "History". St Helen's Church, Berrick Salome. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  6. ^ Gelling 1953–54[page needed]
  7. ^ Ditmas 2009, pp. 193–212.
  8. Ordnance Survey of Great Britain
    . 1980. § Sheet 254.
  9. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 17.
  10. ^ a b c Moreau 1968, p. 98
  11. ^ Holmes, C, in Tiller 1999, p. 19
  12. ^ Garmondsway 1953, p. 51.
  13. ^ a b Holmes, C, in Tiller 1999, p. 24
  14. ^ a b Moreau 1968, p. 99
  15. ^ a b c Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 452
  16. ^ Taylor & Taylor 1965.
  17. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 96.
  18. ^ Tiller 1999, p. 118.
  19. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 110.
  20. ^ a b Moreau 1968, p. 111.
  21. ^ a b Anonymous 1926, pp. 786–7.
  22. ^ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 369.
  23. ^ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 587.
  24. ^ "History". Waterperry Village. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  25. ^ Lyford, Oxfordshire, photograph of church, Accessed 24 May 2013
  26. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 100.
  27. ^ "Berrick Salome". Towers. Oxford Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers, South Oxfordshire Branch. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  28. ^ a b c Baldwin, Sid (12 December 2011). "Bell Founders". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  29. ^ a b c Davies, Peter (5 January 2007). "Berrick Salome S Helen". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  30. ^ a b Salzman 1939, p. 419
  31. ^ a b Holmes, C, in Tiller 1999, p. 27
  32. ^ Salzman 1939, p. 377.
  33. ^ a b Ditmas 2009, p. 37
  34. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 13.
  35. ^ Lobel 1964, pp. 43–55.
  36. ^ Moreau 1968, pp. 13–14.
  37. ^ Moreau 1968, pp. 9–10.
  38. ^ First General Review of County Districts and Parishes by the Oxfordshire County Council, 1931
  39. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 8.
  40. ^ Moreau 1968, pp. 8–9.
  41. ^ Moreau 1968, pp. 10.
  42. ^ Moreau 1968, pp. 10–11.
  43. ^ Articles of enquiry addressed to the clergy of the diocese of Oxford at the Primary Visitation of Dr Thomas Secker, 1738. Oxfordshire Record Society. 1957.[page needed]
  44. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 21.
  45. ^ Tiller 1999, p. 99.
  46. ^ Salzman 1939, p. 408.
  47. ^ Tiller 1999, p. 101.
  48. ^ Tiller 1999, p. 102.
  49. ^ Tiller 1999, pp. 102–4.
  50. ^ Tiller 1999, pp. 105–7.
  51. ^ Act 16 Vic. c 3
  52. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 23.
  53. ^ a b Inclosure Commissioners, Berrick Salome Inclosure Award, 1863
  54. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 86.
  55. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 133.
  56. ^ a b Moreau 1968, p. 134.
  57. ^ Richard Davis, Oxfordshire [2 inch map], 1797
  58. ^ a b c Moreau 1968, p. 135
  59. ^ a b c "Robert French Laurence, priest, social reformer, 23rd April 1885". Diocese of Oxford.
  60. ^ a b Moreau 1968, p. 129.
  61. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 58.
  62. ^ a b Moreau 1968, p. 57.
  63. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 139.
  64. ^ Moreau 1968, facing pp. 24, 25.
  65. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 66.
  66. ^ Parliamentary Papers 1905, xcvii, p. 348. cited in Tiller 1999, p. 123
  67. ^ Reid, A, in Tiller 1999, p. 138
  68. ^ Sharp 1948, p. 58.
  69. ^ Lewchuk 1987, p. 155.
  70. ^ MillenniumBook 1999, pp. 86–89.
  71. ^ M40 motorway, accessed 21 May 2013
  72. ^ Moreau 1968, facing p. 24.
  73. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 155.
  74. ^ MillenniumBook 1999, p. 60.
  75. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 19.
  76. ^ Moreau 1968, pp. 19–20.
  77. ^ MillenniumBook 1999, p. 63.
  78. ^ MillenniumBook 1999, p. 31.
  79. ^ a b 1971 Census County Report for Oxfordshire (Part 1); Bullingdon RD; Berrick Salome
  80. ^ a b 1981 Census: Ward and Civil Parish Monitor – Oxfordshire, pp. 18, 19
  81. ^ a b 1991 Census: Ward and Civil Parish Monitor – Oxfordshire, p. 10
  82. ^ MillenniumBook 1999, p. 29.
  83. ^ Moreau 1968, p. 28.

Sources

External links

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