The Site

Blewbury is a village about 50 miles (80 km) west of London and about 14 miles (23 km) due south of Oxford.

Blewbury was probably sited here as at this point a number of springs arise at the foot of the chalk downs. A main road, the A417, runs along the foot of the downs above the springs. It is thus close to the south edge of the Village. It is lined with houses on both sides and rather narrow in places. Turnpike House in the village recalls the time when this road was the Wantage to Streatley Turnpike.

Some springs feed a small lake known as the Watercress Beds, for the unsurprising reason that watercress used to be cultivated there. From here and elsewhere tributaries feed the Mill Brook which carries the water to the Thames at Wallingford. Blewbury Mill on this Mill Brook is said to be where blotting paper was discovered.

The Village

The streams pass through the older part of the village, which contains a number of timber framed houses and other attractive buildings of various ages. The buildings are set within open green spaces, and are linked by a network of footpaths, centred on the Church. Some of the paths are bordered by thatched cob walls.

The eastern part of the village has been built up this century, as the population grew from about 600 in 1895 to about 1540 now.

The stone Church was originally Saxon. In one of the numerous changes since then, the tower was moved from the centre of the church to the west end. It contains a peal of 8 bells, which were repaired and re-hung for the celebration of the millennium.

The village has for long had a number of other religious persuasions, including an active group of Quakers in the seventeenth century. There is a Methodist Chapel at the end of Chapel lane. In addition to the normal services, this is also used for some general meetings.

The village had been divided into several manors. The largest was owned by the crown. The main manor house has extensive grounds, a large lake that may have been a fish pond, and part of a moat.

A fine school house had been built in 1709, out of the bequest of a William Malthus of Reading. A new primary school was built in the 1960s, and the old school is now used for a playgroup for under fives.

Pubs and Shops

There are three pubs, which might seem sufficient for the population - indeed they attract visitors from well outside the village. However a hundred years ago the much smaller population had six pubs to choose from.

There used to be a village shop near the Church and Village Hall, this closed in August 2000. Since then a Post Office has been opened at the end of the Village Hall. A petrol garage is sited where the main A417 (London Road) leaves the village on the London side. This also sells groceries and papers. A greengrocer's shop and garden centre is situated at the western end of the village.

There is an antique shop, a garden machinery shop and a car repair garage.

Social Activities

Much of the social life of the village takes place in the Village Hall. This has a main hall large enough for playing Badminton, and the Vale Room for smaller meetings. Some space is used for the doctors surgery. The hall was built in the early 1970s, however in 1997 a serious defect was discovered in its construction, and it had to be expensively rebuilt.

The Recreation Ground provides a playground, two football pitches, a cricket square, and four tennis courts. All the facilities are managed by active sports clubs. A further five acres was purchased to extend this area. This now contains newly laid croquet lawns, a skateboarding area and a dirt track for cycling with humps.

There is an old and a new cemetery by the recreation facilities. The older one had an interesting lych gate dating from after the first world war. The second has been provided with a lych gate of the same design.

There is a golf range at the edge of the village, and there are horse riding facilities nearby.

The Village Society facilitates communal activities in the village, including Fireworks on November 5th, the visit of Santa Claus on his sleigh on Christmas Eve, a fancy dress Boxing Day walk, and a mid-Summer Dance.

Theatre and Opera

Every two years or so the village puts on a festival, with a variety of shows and dances, a chance to see exhibitions in many of the old houses, and a walk along the path of the Millbrook as it threads its way through many private gardens.

The village has a remarkable theatrical tradition. There is an open air theatre holding 250 in the grounds of Orchard Dene house, where very high quality productions are put on each summer. These involve amateur actors and back stage workers under professional direction. Similar quality is in evidence in other theatrical events put on in the Village Hall. The spoof "Blewbury Operas" is just one example.

About every five years for the last twenty-five years the village has commissioned a new opera for amateur performance. This has been presented in the Church. The earlier operas attracted media attention, including a 1 hour television film about "The Snow Queen" in 1982. The recent operas have had less attention even though the last - "Joseph Justus" was of exceptional quality. The productions are not widely seen, since once the Church has been adapted for the large cast and orchestra, there is only room for about 120 in the audience each night. The next opera is planned to be a new production of Benjamin Britten's "Noyes Fludde" in 2009.

The Surroundings

The area round the Village is farm land. Woodway on the downs is used to train race horses, and on the edge of the village next to Aston Tirrold is a very prestigious Racehorse Stud farm.

The downs provide excellent opportunities for exercise, away from traffic. One modest excursion is a 5 mile walk to the Bell at Aldworth. Keener walkers can follow the Ridgeway long distance path 40 miles to the standing stones at Avebury.

Appraisal

The best of Blewbury

The community, the environment, the open spaces and the footpaths were rated the most important features of the Village.

Age

19.9% of the survey were 65 or over, compared with 15.6% for Oxfordshire as a whole. The retirement homes in Dibleys will be a factor.

Employment

51% of the population were in work - 38% as employees and 13% self employed. 12% were in full time education. Of those working or studying, 34% work in Blewbury, 23% within 5 miles of Blewbury, 6% in London and 37% elsewhere.

26% of the population were fully retired, 8% were un-waged housewifes/househusbands, 1.4% were unemployed and less than 1% were sick or disabled.

Blewbury Bulletin

88% of the respondents read every issue of the Blewbury Bulletin.

A Parish Plan was produced by the Village in 2004. The development of the plan was aided by this web site, and the details are archived here.

History

The area of the downs has been occupied for thousands of years. Remains from those times include the Ridgeway - a long distance track - and a number of round barrow burial mounds in the Parish. Blewburton Hill east of the village was an iron age hill fort, with three sets of walls and ditches revetted with wood, a massive wooden gate, and a cobbled entrance. It was overrun and abandoned around the start of the Roman period.

During the Roman period a villa or temple was constructed near the Ridgeway on Lowbury Hill.

In 634 AD St Birinus was sent from Rome to convert the Midlands. By tradition he preached to the local tribe from a round barrow in Blewbury, known as Churn Knob. He was successful in converting the tribe and was permitted to set up an abbey in Dorchester-on-Thames. An annual pilgrimage now walks from Churn Knob to Dorchester in celebration.

Blewbury was called "this venerable village" in its Saxon charter. There is much more information in the Domesday Book of 1086. At that time the population was probably about 400, and there were four water mills; two of the mills remain.

It was probably a fairly typical agricultural village for much of the second millennium. The East Field will have been open farmed, and the tracks up to the downs have been deeply cut into the chalk by the frequent passage of animals. One of these is still called Cow Lane. The Chalk Pit above the village was used to mine chalk stone, which can be seen in houses and walls to this day.

The village was divided into three manors. The Great Manor was owned by the King until the seventeenth century. The Prebendal Manor was assigned to the Church. The third - Nottingham Fee - was bought by the long established local family the Humfreys in about 1652. They retained some of it including the manor house Hall Barn until recent times.

During the English civil war Blewbury was in no man's land between the King in Oxford and the Roundheads. On one day a troop of Cavaliers arrived at Hall Barn and demanded lunch. They had just been satisfied and departed when a troop of Roundheads arrived with the same request, and were served at the same tables.

Since then, with the increase in literacy and record keeping, we have very much more information on the village. The Local History Society has a file of all registered births and deaths in the Parish. The governance of the village fell to a number of major farming families who intermarried. They included the Humfreys, the Robinsons and the Corderoys. There were also the variety of local tradesmen.

The enclosure act of 1805 sets the scene of the village at that time. It divided up the farming land into individual holdings, and further strengthened the farmers at the expense of the labourers.

Around the end of the 19th Century, the open areas of the downs were used for military manoeuvres each summer, the camp being victualled by the local farmers. A firing range was also introduced, and was used intermittently until the 1970s.

A railway line was built past the village at the end of the expansion of railways in the 1880s. The local station called Blewbury and Upton was in fact in Upton. The line was widened to 2 tracks in the 1940s to support the D day landings, but was closed in 1964.

For the first half of the twentieth century the village attracted a number of notable artists and writers. For example the artist John Revel, the illustrator Trissy Webster and the writers Kenneth Grahame and Marguerite Steen. The artistic tradition continues, and keen amateur artists receive direction from the professional artists Ron Freeborn and Roy East. This site includes an Art Gallery devoted to the work of local artists.

Until about 1970 there were several racing stables in the village; one is still in business a mile to the south, and there are several actively used racehorse gallops on the Downs to the south of Blewbury.

Since the 1950s Blewbury has become an attractive place for people commuting to work in the area, or even in London. The old cottages have been improved and extended, and a number of estates have been built.