Letcombe Bassett

Letcombe Bassett today

Letcombe Bassett is a small village tucked into the head of a steep combe on the north face of the Berkshire Downs. Letcombe Brook rises here and runs down past the old watercress beds towards Letcombe Regis and Wantage. The Ridgeway runs along the top of the downs above the village, and the chalk grassland of Hackpen, Warren and Gramp’s Hill Downs is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The parish was in Berkshire until 1974.

This is one of the smallest parishes in the area, with about 160 people. There is the church of St Michael and a listed village hall. The Yew Tree, once the village pub, is now a private house, and there is no shop or school. It is reached by lanes from Letcombe Regis and the B4507, or on foot from the Ridgeway down Gramp’s Hill.

History

Barrows and fields

Several round barrows lie on the downs south of the village. Two were opened by Canon William Greenwell in 1880, and traces of early terraced fields have been noted near them. The hillfort of Segsbury Camp is on the ridge just to the east, in the neighbouring parish.

Domesday and the Bassets

Before 1066 the manor belonged to Wigot of Wallingford; by 1086 it was held by Robert d’Oilly, with 26 households and two mills. By about 1158 it had passed to Richard Basset, whose family name was added to tell this ‘upper’ Letcombe from the king’s manor downstream. The Basset estate was split among the six daughters of Thurstan Basset in the 13th century, and part of it passed through the Beauchamps and the Lords Cobham. In 1524 William Fettiplace of Childrey bought the main manor and left it to Queen’s College, Oxford, to fund his chantry and almshouse at Childrey. The college still held it in 1924. The open fields were enclosed in two stages, with awards in 1774 and 1804.

The church

St Michael’s is small but old. The chancel is 12th-century, and on its north side is a blocked Norman doorway whose capitals are carved with the symbols of the four evangelists. The imposts of the chancel arch carry rich scroll and cable ornament. The tower was built late in the 13th century, with its west face later rebuilt in brick. A south aisle was added in 1862, and two of the three bells are dated 1576.

Swift, Hardy and watercress

In the summer of 1714 Jonathan Swift left London politics and spent about three months at the rectory with his friend John Geree, the rector. There he wrote the pamphlet Some Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs. Alexander Pope is said to have visited him. In the 1890s Thomas Hardy used the village as Cresscombe in Jude the Obscure, and a thatched cottage by the brook has long been known as Arabella’s Cottage. The name Cresscombe points to the local trade: watercress from the beds on the brook was sent to London, where ‘Bassett cress’ was cried in Covent Garden market. Racehorses have also been trained on the downs here.

The village that would not die

After the Second World War the village’s future was in doubt. In 1948 a British Pathé newsreel, Shall Letcombe Bassett Die?, reported fears that the county council would not pay to bring services such as mains drainage to so small a place, and that people would have to leave. Villagers campaigned, and Letcombe Bassett survived.

Things to see

• St Michael’s church, with its carved Norman doorway and chancel arch.
• The 17th and 18th-century chest and bale tombs in the churchyard, several of them listed.
• Arabella’s Cottage and the old watercress beds on Letcombe Brook (the cottage is private; view it from the lane).
• The Ridgeway and Gramp’s Hill, with views over the Vale.
• Segsbury Camp hillfort, a short walk east along the Ridgeway.