Wantage & the villages
Wantage, Grove and the villages
The towns and villages of the Vale of White Horse and the Downs around Wantage. Each place has its own page with where it is, its businesses, clubs, history and what's on nearby.
Wantage
Grove
East Challow
East Hanney
East Hendred
Ardington
Letcombe Regis
Childrey
Charlton
Charney Bassett
Harwell
Denchworth
West Hanney
Kingston Lisle
West Challow
Kingsgrove
Lyford
West Hendred
East Lockinge
Letcombe Bassett
Sparsholt
Milton
Fawley
Steventon
Uffington
Farnborough
South Fawley
West Lockinge
West Ginge
East Ginge
Local history
Wantage through the centuries
King Alfred was born here in 849. The stories of the town and its villages, and the people and places that shaped them.
Explore local historyThrough the centuries
- Wantage before the 7th century
- Wantage in the 7th and 8th centuries
- Wantage in the 9th century
- Wantage in the 10th century
- King Æthelred’s council at Wantage and the Wantage Code
- Wantage in the 11th century
- Wantage in the 12th century
- Wantage in the 13th century
- Wantage in the 14th century
- Wantage in the 15th century
- Wantage in the 16th century
- The Town Lands Act of 1597
- Wantage in the 17th century
- Wantage in the 18th century
- Wantage in the 19th century
- The Wilts and Berks Canal at Wantage
- Wantage Road station on the Great Western Railway
- The Wantage Tramway
- The unveiling of King Alfred’s statue, 1877
- Wantage in the early 20th century
- Wantage in the First World War
- Wantage in the Second World War
- Wantage since 1945
- The crash of Lancaster HK788 at Lyford, 8 April 1945
- The Hanney brooch and the West Hanney Saxon burial, 2009
- The Scots Guards receive the Freedom of Wantage, 2011
- The Childrey Warren pipeline excavations, 2018–19
Notable people
- King Alfred the Great
- Alice FitzWarin (Alice Whittington)
- Edmund Campion at Lyford Grange
- King Alfred’s Academy (the grammar school)
- Edward Pococke, Rector of Childrey
- Jonathan Swift at Letcombe Bassett
- Isaac Kimber
- Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham
- William John Butler, Vicar of Wantage
- Thomas Hughes
- George Edmund Street
- Robert Loyd-Lindsay VC, Lord Wantage
- Harriet Loyd-Lindsay, Lady Wantage
- Thomas Hardy and the Vale
- Thomas William Shore
- The Wantage Engineering Company and the Vale of White Horse Iron Works
- Community of St Mary the Virgin
- St Mary’s School, Wantage
- Sir John Hobbis Harris
- Mother Maribel of Wantage
- Sir John Betjeman
- Penelope Chetwode (Lady Betjeman)
- Captain Tim Forster
- Lester Piggott
- Icknield Way Morris Men and the Wantage Mummers
- Frances O’Connor
- Wantage Silver Band
- Dr Dick Squires MBE DL
- Williams Racing, Grove
Historic places
- Ardington House
- Ashdown House and Alfred’s Castle
- Betjeman Millennium Park, Wantage
- Champs Chapel (Chapel of Jesus of Bethlehem), East Hendred
- Charney Manor, Charney Bassett
- Cherbury Camp, Charney Bassett
- Church of the Holy Rood, Sparsholt
- Dragon Hill and the Manger, Uffington
- Harwell: from Atomic Energy Research Establishment to Harwell Campus
- Hendred House and St Amand’s Chapel, East Hendred
- King Alfred’s Statue, Wantage Market Place
- Kingston Lisle House and Park
- Lockinge House (demolished 1947)
- Mills and watercress on the Letcombe Brook
- Milton Manor House
- Parish Church of SS Peter and Paul, Wantage
- Priory Cottages and the Causeway, Steventon
- RAF Grove (Grove Airfield)
- Scutchamer Knob (Cuckhamsley Hill)
- Segsbury Camp (Letcombe Castle)
- St James the Great, West Hanney, and the Hanneys
- St Mary’s Church, Childrey, and the Fettiplace Brasses
- St Mary’s Convent, Wantage (Community of St Mary the Virgin)
- Stirlings, Wallingford Street, Wantage
- The Ardington Millennium Stones (the Millennium Sundial)
- The Blowing Stone, Kingston Lisle
- The Lockinge Estate and its Model Villages
- The Lord Wantage Monument, Ridgeway
- The Ridgeway and the Icknield Way
- The Uffington White Horse