Milton

Milton today

Milton is a village of about 1,600 people on the flat, well-watered land between Didcot and Abingdon, with the Ginge Brook forming its northern boundary. The old village runs along the High Street to the church and Milton Manor House, and is a conservation area. At the time of writing it has a pub, the Plum Pudding (known until 2013 as the Admiral Benbow), and a Church of England primary school founded in 1796. To the south is Milton Park, a large business and science park; the A34 and its Milton interchange run along the western side of the parish.

History

Name and early finds

The name, Middeltune in early records, means the middle farm or settlement, perhaps because it lay between Sutton Courtenay and Steventon. Milton was a chapelry of Sutton Courtenay until the 11th century. Roman and Saxon objects have been found in the parish.

Abingdon Abbey and Domesday

In 956 King Eadwig granted 15 hides at Milton to his thegn Alfwin, who gave them to Abingdon Abbey. In 1086 the abbey held the manor, with 86 households, two mills and a large area of meadow, making it a substantial village by Domesday standards. The abbey kept Milton until its surrender in 1538. In 1499 the tenants of the manor turned 120 acres of ploughland into pasture, a move that the records say drove most of the people living at the manor house off the land.

The Caltons, the Barretts and Milton House

Henry VIII granted the manor in 1546 to Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, who sold it the same year to Thomas Calton, a London goldsmith. The Caltons built Milton House, described in 1696 as newly built; it has been attributed to Inigo Jones, but some architectural historians think it more likely dates from the 1660s. Paul Calton married the daughter of Vice-Admiral John Benbow, who is said to have lived at the Dower House, and there is a tradition that Peter the Great visited in 1697-98. In 1764 the estate was sold to the Barrett family, and John Briant Barrett added wings and a Catholic chapel in the 1770s. His friend Richard Challoner, the Catholic bishop and author, was buried in the Barrett vault in the church in 1781; his remains were moved to Westminster Cathedral in 1946.

The church

St Blaise is dedicated to the patron saint of wool-combers, which may reflect a local wool trade. The tower, porch and part of the nave are 14th century; the rest was rebuilt by Henry Woodyer in 1849-51. A 14th-century font now stands in the old rectory garden as a sundial.

Enclosure, depot and science park

The open fields were enclosed under an award of 1810. In about 1770 the Bowles family of Abingdon built Milton Hill House in a new park on Milton Hill; it later became a hotel. In 1916 the Royal Flying Corps took over land south of the village as a stores depot, and in the Second World War army and RAF units supplied airfields across the south of England from it. The depot closed in 1963 and was sold in 1971 as the Milton Trading Estate. Since 1984 it has been run as Milton Park, which from 1988 was aimed at science companies and university spin-outs. The parish moved from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in 1974.

Things to see

• Milton Manor House (Grade I), open to visitors on set days each year by guided tour.
• St Blaise’s church (Grade II*), with its 14th-century tower and porch.
• 42A and 42B High Street, a 14th-century cruck-framed cottage (Grade II*), seen from the street.
• Milton Mill House on the Ginge Brook (Grade II).