Brightwell-cum-Sotwell

Brightwell-cum-Sotwell
Brightwell-cum-Sotwell
Shire county	Oxfordshire;
Region	South East;
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Wallingford
Postcode district	OX10
Dialling code	01491
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Oxfordshire
Ambulance	South Central
UK Parliament	Didcot and Wantage;
Website	Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Website
	List of places UK England Oxfordshire 51°36′46″N 1°09′46″W / 51.6129°N 1.1629°W

Brightwell-cum-Sotwell is a twin-village and

civil parish in the Upper Thames Valley in South Oxfordshire. It lies between Didcot to the west and the historic market town of Wallingford to the east. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire to the county of Oxfordshire, and from Wallingford Rural District

to the district of South Oxfordshire.

History

Brightwell and Sotwell were originally two separate villages, rural settlements whose inhabitants worked the land.

For thousands of years hunter-gatherers of the Thames Valley would have passed this way, stalking wild animals and gathering from the trees that grew on the greens and in this area. This good soil and the abundant water supply may have encouraged Iron Age farmers (1500 BC - AD 50) to settle in this area. The ramparts on Wittenham Clumps provide enduring evidence of Iron Age settlement in the area.

Medieval times

The first written evidence of a village here comes from the various

King Stephen and his cousin Matilda. The exact site of this castle is unknown, but it probably lay within the moated areas of what later contained St Agatha's/Brightwell manor house

in Brightwell or Stonor Hayes manor house in Sotwell.

Early modern times

For the next 800 years Brightwell and Sotwell parishes only occasionally appear in recorded history. For example:

1330 (circa) Thomas de Brayles, later

Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer

, appointed parish priest.

1500 (circa) Prince Arthur (eldest son of Henry VII) stayed at Sotwell House.
1507 Clerk in Holy Orders murdered in St Agatha's.
1649 Edward Hyde DD ejected from his living for being a Royalist.
1666 Church collection for victims of the Great Fire of London.
1726 Mrs Frances Riggins leaves a legacy "for bread and ye schooling for ye poor of Slade End".
1774-1849 Reverend Thomas Wintle. "About 4 o'clock with my neighbours at ye Red Lion where they dined at the expense of ye parish and myself and then set again to mark the boundaries"
1781
King George III
rode through the village returning from a stag hunt.
1785 A Sunday school set up by the Reverend Wintle.
1811 Inclosure Act for Brightwell.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian era, the village had some significant philanthropists who worked hard for the good of the villagers:

Reverend Marmaduke Thompson - building of Brightwell National School in the village.
Reverend John Haldane Stewart - building of the new village school, which is now the village hall. Forming a night school for adult parishioners.
Farmer Edward Fairthorne - Reading Room and recreation ground for the villagers. Scholarships for promising boys to go to Wallingford Grammar School.
Miss Augusta Fairthorne - endowment of the Free Church.

Modern times

The

War Memorial records the loss of villagers in the armed services in the two world wars. In the second half of the 20th century there was significant expansion of the villages and in 1948 the villages of Brightwell and Sotwell were brought together as one civil parish. In 1949 the Greenmere estate was built and later, estates were also built at Kings Orchard, Monks Mead and Datchet Green. There are no immediate plans for any major development, though around 2011 there was some controversy regarding a plan to build some 800 houses between the village and Wallingford. The plan to develop on this area was eventually abandoned, in the face of local pressure, in favour of a new development on the Hithercroft.^[3]

Notable buildings and structures

A walk around the narrow village streets will reveal many houses still standing which date back to

Grade II listed building, with a mid 17th-century half-timbered structure extended by an 18th-century stone frontage. ^[4]

The Church of England parish churches of St Agatha (Brightwell) and St James (Sotwell) would have been at the centre of village affairs, surrounded by many thatched cottages with cob, or wattle and daub, walls. The original building dates back to the 12th century, the tower was rebuilt in about 1797. The church was restored in the 19th century, with an organ chamber added in about 1903. ^[5]

Notable residents

Thomas de Brayles, judge and Crown official, was parish priest here in the 1330s.
George Warner Allen (1916–1988) - artist
Dr Edward Bach - Mount Vernon centre for education and information. The home and workplace of Bach in the last years of his life, where he completed his research into the Bach flower remedies.
Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet - as governor of the provinces of New Jersey and Massachusetts Bay, his uncompromising policies were instrumental in the events leading to the American Revolution.
Charlie Brooker, the British comedy writer, grew up in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell.
Sir
Proms
concerts, also lived in the village and died there in 2000.
William Ralph Inge, a Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London lived in Brightwell Manor. His family continued to reside there until the early 1970s.
Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister, has lived in Brightwell Manor with his current family since 2023

Gallery

The Red Lion public house
Inside St. Agatha's parish church
Moat Cottage and K6 telephone box

References

^ "Area: Brightwell-cum-Sotwell CP (Parish): Parish Headcounts". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 11 February 2003. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
^ "Electronic Sawyer". esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk.
^ "Home - Wallingford".
^ "Brightwell Manor". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
^ "Church of St Agatha". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2 September 2021.

Sources

Page, W.H.; Ditchfield, P.H., eds. (1924). A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 3. Victoria County History
. pp. 464–471, 507–511.

Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 102–103, 221–222.

External links

[1] "Area: Brightwell-cum-Sotwell CP (Parish): Parish Headcounts". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 11 February 2003. Retrieved 21 March 2010.

[2] "Electronic Sawyer". esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk.

[3] "Home - Wallingford".

[4] "Brightwell Manor". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2 September 2021.

[5] "Church of St Agatha". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2 September 2021.

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