King Alfred the Great
The West Saxon king born at the royal estate of Wantage in 849, remembered today by the marble statue in the Market Place.
Local history
History of Wantage and the villages
King Alfred was born here in 849. The story of the town and its villages, from the White Horse to the post-war years, and the people and places that shaped them. Researched and sourced; tell us if you know more.
Timeline
The story of Wantage
Prehistory
- Prehistory to c. 600Wantage before the 7th century
From the Uffington White Horse and Segsbury hillfort to Roman farmsteads and the first Anglo-Saxon settlers around Wantage.
- Excavated 2018 to 2019The Childrey Warren pipeline excavations, 2018–19
Archaeologists working ahead of a Thames Water pipeline between Childrey Warren and Wantage found 10,000 years of activity and more than 30 burials.
Roman
Saxon
- c. 600 to 800Wantage in the 7th and 8th centuries
No document names Wantage before Alfred's day, but archaeology and the wider story of Wessex and Mercia show what the area was like.
- 800 to 899Wantage in the 9th century
Wantage enters the written record as a West Saxon royal estate and the birthplace of King Alfred, who left it to his wife in his will.
- 900 to 999Wantage in the 10th century
A royal manor after Alfred, charters for neighbouring Charlton, and King Æthelred's council at Wantage in 997, which issued the Wantage Code.
- c. 997King Æthelred’s council at Wantage and the Wantage Code
In about 997 King Æthelred's council met at the royal manor of Wantage and issued a law code with an early form of the jury.
- 1000 to 1099Wantage in the 11th century
The Norman Conquest and Domesday Book: Wantage as a large royal manor of 89 households, with a church, a mill and its own hundred.
- Found 2009The Hanney brooch and the West Hanney Saxon burial, 2009
In 2009 a metal detectorist at West Hanney found a gold and garnet brooch in the grave of a young woman buried in the mid-7th century.
Medieval
- 1100 to 1199Wantage in the 12th century
The church is given to the Norman abbey of Bec, Grove goes to Bermondsey, Wantage is listed as a town, and Richard I grants the manor away.
- 1200 to 1299Wantage in the 13th century
The FitzWarins take over, the market and fairs are recorded, the Market Place takes shape and the church is rebuilt around its central tower.
- 1300 to 1399Wantage in the 14th century
Rebel lords, a royal mistress as custodian, a rebuilt nave and the tomb of Sir William FitzWarin: Wantage in the century of the Black Death.
- 1400 to 1499Wantage in the 15th century
The church gains its hammer-beam roof, choir stalls and new patrons at Windsor, while cloth making and charitable gifts shape the town.
Tudor & Stuart
- 1500 to 1599Wantage in the 16th century
Reformation changes, the Earl of Bath's market cross of 1580 and the Town Lands Act of 1597 that gave Wantage its governors and school.
- 1597The Town Lands Act of 1597
An Act of 1597 made twelve governors trustees of Wantage's charity lands, for the poor, the roads and a grammar school; they still exist.
- 1600 to 1699Wantage in the 17th century
Civil War soldiers, a failing cloth trade, the Stiles almshouses, new schools in the churchyard and the birth of Bishop Joseph Butler.
- 1700 to 1799Wantage in the 18th century
Georgian houses, tanneries and sacking works, a town run by constables and trustees, and a growing reputation as 'Black Wantage'.
Georgian
- 1800 to 1899Wantage in the 19th century
Enclosure, the canal and railway, the end of tanning, Butler's reforms and the Victorian Market Place with Alfred's statue and the town hall.
- 1810 to 1914The Wilts and Berks Canal at Wantage
The canal from Semington to Abingdon opened in 1810 with a branch into Wantage; railway competition killed it and it was abandoned in 1914.
Victorian
- 1846 to 1964Wantage Road station on the Great Western Railway
The GWR station at Grove, two miles from the town, served Wantage from 1846 until the Beeching closures of 1964.
- 1875 to 1945The Wantage Tramway
A 2½-mile roadside tramway linking Wantage with Wantage Road station, one of the first in Britain to use steam; open 1875–1945.
- 14 July 1877The unveiling of King Alfred’s statue, 1877
On 14 July 1877 the Prince and Princess of Wales unveiled Count Gleichen's marble statue of Alfred, given to Wantage by Colonel Loyd-Lindsay.
Early 20th century
- 1901 to 1939Wantage in the early 20th century
From Lord Wantage's death to the eve of the Second World War: a quiet market town, the tramway's decline and Charlton joining the town.
- 1914 to 1918Wantage in the First World War
How Wantage lived through 1914–18: fundraising, billeted troops, the men who served and the memorials the town built afterwards.
- 1939 to 1945Wantage in the Second World War
RAF Grove and the Americans of Station 519, a tramway worn out by war traffic, and the memorial cross dedicated in 1949.
- 8 April 1945The crash of Lancaster HK788 at Lyford, 8 April 1945
A month before the end of the war in Europe, an RAF Lancaster returning from a raid caught fire and crashed at Lyford, killing all seven crew.
Since 1945
- 1945 to presentWantage since 1945
Atomic science at Harwell, Williams F1 at Grove, a move to Oxfordshire, a new museum and the rapid growth of Wantage and Grove.
- 21 May 2011The Scots Guards receive the Freedom of Wantage, 2011
On 21 May 2011 the 1st Battalion Scots Guards paraded through Wantage to receive the Freedom of the town, granted in 2010 in honour of the regiment's link with Lord…
Notable people
People who shaped the area
Alice FitzWarin (Alice Whittington)
Daughter of Sir Ivo FitzWarin, lord of a Wantage manor, who married Richard 'Dick' Whittington in 1402.
Edmund Campion at Lyford Grange
The Jesuit priest and martyr was arrested at Lyford Grange on 17 July 1581 after a spy attended his Mass; he was executed that…
King Alfred’s Academy (the grammar school)
Wantage's secondary school, descended from a Tudor grammar school chartered in 1597 and renamed after King Alfred in 1849.
Edward Pococke, Rector of Childrey
Oxford's first Professor of Arabic, rector of Childrey from the 1640s until 1691; a cedar at the old rectory is said to be one…
Jonathan Swift at Letcombe Bassett
The author of Gulliver's Travels spent summer 1714 at Letcombe Bassett rectory, writing a political pamphlet as the Tory government fell.
Isaac Kimber
Wantage-born Baptist minister, historian and journalist, author of a popular Life of Oliver Cromwell (1724) and editor of The London Magazine.
Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham
Philosopher and bishop born at The Priory, Wantage, in 1692, author of the Fifteen Sermons and The Analogy of Religion.
William John Butler, Vicar of Wantage
Vicar of Wantage 1847–1880 who founded the Community of St Mary the Virgin and St Mary's School, and later became Dean of Lincoln.
Thomas Hughes
Uffington-born author of Tom Brown's School Days and The Scouring of the White Horse, lawyer, MP and Christian Socialist.
George Edmund Street
Leading Gothic Revival architect who began his independent career in Wantage, designing the vicarage, convent and grammar school for Butler.
Robert Loyd-Lindsay VC, Lord Wantage
Crimean War VC, co-founder of the British Red Cross and builder of the Lockinge estate, who gave Wantage its statue of King Alfred.
Harriet Loyd-Lindsay, Lady Wantage
Heiress, art collector and benefactor of Lockinge who shaped the estate villages, founded Wantage Hall at Reading and raised the Ridgeway cross.
Thomas Hardy and the Vale
Hardy's grandmother grew up at Fawley, which became Marygreen in Jude the Obscure; Wantage became 'Alfredston' and his sisters taught at Denchworth.
Thomas William Shore
Wantage-born geologist and antiquary who ran the Hartley Institution at Southampton and founded the Hampshire Field Club in 1885.
The Wantage Engineering Company and the Vale of White Horse Iron Works
Wantage's biggest Victorian industry: an ironworks that won prizes around the world for threshing machines and steam engines.
Community of St Mary the Virgin
Anglican sisterhood founded in Wantage in 1848 by the vicar, William John Butler; one of the oldest surviving religious orders in the Church of…
St Mary’s School, Wantage
Girls' boarding school founded by William John Butler in 1873 and run by the Wantage sisters; it closed in 2007 after 134 years.
Sir John Hobbis Harris
Wantage-born missionary and campaigner who, with his wife Alice, exposed atrocities in the Congo Free State and later led the Anti-Slavery Society.
Mother Maribel of Wantage
Slade-trained artist who joined the Wantage sisters in 1914, led them as Mother General 1940–53 and carved the convent's Stations of the Cross.
Sir John Betjeman
Poet Laureate who lived at Uffington (1934–45), Farnborough (1945–51) and The Mead in Wantage from 1951, and wrote about the Vale.
Penelope Chetwode (Lady Betjeman)
Travel writer and Indologist, wife of John Betjeman, who lived at Uffington, Farnborough and Wantage and ran King Alfred's Kitchen tea shop.
Captain Tim Forster
Racehorse trainer at Letcombe Bassett from 1963 to 1994, who won the Grand National three times: 1972, 1980 and 1985.
Lester Piggott
Wantage-born jockey who won the Derby nine times and was champion jockey eleven times; a bronze of him stands in the town museum.
Icknield Way Morris Men and the Wantage Mummers
Wantage morris side begun by Icknield School pupils in 1958, keepers of the Stanton Harcourt dances and of the Wantage Mummers' Boxing Day play.
Frances O’Connor
Actor and film director born in Wantage in 1967 and raised in Perth, Western Australia, known for Mansfield Park, A.I. and The Missing.
Wantage Silver Band
Brass band organisation founded in Wantage in 1972, now running contesting, community, youth and training bands from two band halls.
Williams Racing, Grove
The Formula One team founded by Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977, based at Grove since the 1990s, with 9 constructors' titles.
Dr Dick Squires MBE DL
Wantage GP who rescued old barns and buildings for community use, creating Lains Barn, the Vale and Downland Museum and the Court Hill Centre.
Historic places
Places you can still visit
Ardington House
A symmetrical Baroque brick house of 1719–21 built for Edward Clarke, with a celebrated staircase; home of the Baring family since 1939.
Ashdown House and Alfred’s Castle
A tall chalk hunting lodge built by the Earl of Craven in the 1660s, and the small Iron Age hillfort beside it, on the…
Betjeman Millennium Park, Wantage
A two-acre park beside the Letcombe Brook, opened in 2002, with a poetry trail carved with John Betjeman's words below his former home.
Champs Chapel (Chapel of Jesus of Bethlehem), East Hendred
A 15th-century chapel built by the Carthusian monks of Sheen, with its priest's house, now East Hendred's village museum.
Charney Manor, Charney Bassett
A 13th-century grange of Abingdon Abbey with a first-floor solar and chapel, one of Britain's oldest inhabited houses and a Quaker retreat since 1948.
Cherbury Camp, Charney Bassett
A large Iron Age fort on low, once marshy ground north of Charney Bassett, excavated in 1939 and now a scheduled monument.
Church of the Holy Rood, Sparsholt
Sparsholt's Grade I church, with a Norman doorway, a 14th-century chancel and rare medieval oak effigies of the Achard family.
Dragon Hill and the Manger, Uffington
A flat-topped chalk knoll where St George is said to have slain the dragon, beside the Manger, a steep Ice Age valley below the…
Harwell: from Atomic Energy Research Establishment to Harwell Campus
The wartime airfield on the downs that became Britain's atomic research centre in 1946 and is now a science campus of more than 200…
Hendred House and St Amand’s Chapel, East Hendred
The medieval manor house of Arches, home of the Catholic Eyston family since the 15th century, with a chapel never used for Protestant worship.
King Alfred’s Statue, Wantage Market Place
Marble statue of King Alfred unveiled in Wantage Market Place in 1877, a gift from Robert Loyd-Lindsay, later Lord Wantage.
Kingston Lisle House and Park
A private country house of 1677, remodelled in the 18th and 19th centuries, in a park first enclosed by Alice de Lisle in 1336.
Lockinge House (demolished 1947)
The mansion at the heart of the Lockinge Estate, home of Lord and Lady Wantage and their art collection, pulled down in 1947.
Mills and watercress on the Letcombe Brook
For 900 years the chalk-fed Letcombe Brook turned corn mills from Letcombe Bassett to Wantage, and its clear water grew watercress for London.
Milton Manor House
A 17th-century brick house in Milton, enlarged in the 1770s with a Gothick library and a Catholic chapel, owned by only two families since…
Parish Church of SS Peter and Paul, Wantage
Wantage's Grade I parish church: a 13th-century cruciform church with medieval brasses, the Fitzwaryn tomb and a Victorian restoration by Street.
Priory Cottages and the Causeway, Steventon
Medieval priory buildings on Steventon's Causeway, now National Trust, beside the raised paved path that has run through the village since the Middle Ages.
RAF Grove (Grove Airfield)
Second World War airfield north-west of Wantage, used by the RAF and then the US Ninth Air Force as a depot and transport base;…
Scutchamer Knob (Cuckhamsley Hill)
A great prehistoric mound on the Ridgeway above East Hendred, named after Cwichelm, where the shire met and a Danish army halted in 1006.
Segsbury Camp (Letcombe Castle)
A large Iron Age hillfort on the downs above Letcombe Regis, used on and off between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC.
St James the Great, West Hanney, and the Hanneys
West Hanney's Norman church, with a rich 12th-century doorway and a fine run of Tudor brasses, serving the old parish of the Hanneys.
St Mary’s Church, Childrey, and the Fettiplace Brasses
Childrey's Grade I church, with a rare 12th-century lead font and one of the finest groups of medieval brasses in the Vale, many of…
St Mary’s Convent, Wantage (Community of St Mary the Virgin)
Home since the 1850s of the Community of St Mary the Virgin, one of the first Anglican sisterhoods, with buildings by Street, Butterfield and…
Stirlings, Wallingford Street, Wantage
The Georgian house William Stirling built at the east end of Wallingford Street after buying the manor of Brians in 1752. It has since…
The Ardington Millennium Stones (the Millennium Sundial)
Two giant sundials in the woods at Ardington, made for the millennium by the sundial maker David Harber: a noon mark and a semicircle…
The Blowing Stone, Kingston Lisle
A perforated sarsen at the foot of Blowingstone Hill that booms when blown, linked in legend with King Alfred; first recorded in 1761.
The Lockinge Estate and its Model Villages
Ardington and the Lockinges, rebuilt from the 1860s by Lord and Lady Wantage as model estate villages; Lockinge House itself was demolished in 1947.
The Lord Wantage Monument, Ridgeway
A tall marble memorial cross on the Ridgeway above Lockinge, put up by Lady Wantage in memory of her husband, Lord Wantage VC (1832–1901).
The Ridgeway and the Icknield Way
The ancient trackway along the crest of the downs above Wantage, now a National Trail, and the lower Icknield Way along the foot of…
The Uffington White Horse
Britain's oldest known chalk hill figure, cut into White Horse Hill some 3,000 years ago and scoured by local people ever since.
Uffington Castle
Iron Age hillfort on the summit of Whitehorse Hill beside the Ridgeway, the highest point in Oxfordshire, built around 700 BC.
Uffington Museum (formerly Tom Brown’s School Museum)
The village school founded in 1617 by Thomas Saunders, a museum since 1984, with displays on the White Horse, Thomas Hughes and John Betjeman.
Vale and Downland Museum, Wantage
Wantage's local museum, in a 17th-century house on Church Street with a barn brought from East Hendred; free galleries on the Vale's history.
Wantage Market Place and the Bear Hotel
The medieval market square at the centre of Wantage, with the 17th-century Bear Hotel, the old Corn Exchange and a twice-weekly market.
Wantage Union Workhouse (later the Downs Hospital)
The workhouse built in 1836 on the Hungerford road south of Wantage for 33 parishes, later the Downs Hospital. Only fragments survive.
Wantage War Memorial and the Memorial Recreation Ground
Wantage remembered its dead first with a recreation ground in 1920, and then with a stone cross in the churchyard unveiled in 1949.
Wayland’s Smithy
A Neolithic chambered long barrow beside the Ridgeway, built in two phases around 3600–3400 BC and named after the smith of Saxon legend.
Village by village
The history of each village
Every village page has its own history, and the people and places connected with it.
ArdingtonCharltonCharney BassettChildreyDenchworthEast ChallowEast GingeEast HanneyEast HendredEast LockingeFarnboroughFawleyGroveHarwellKingsgroveKingston LisleLetcombe BassettLetcombe RegisLyfordMiltonSouth FawleySparsholtSteventonUffingtonWantageWest ChallowWest GingeWest HanneyWest HendredWest Lockinge
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