West Hanney

West Hanney today

West Hanney sits on low, well-watered ground in the Vale of White Horse, just west of the A338 Wantage to Oxford road. It is the smaller of the two Hanneys by population but historically the senior one: the parish church, the vicarage and the old manor farms are here. The village gathers round a small green with a stone cross, with the church, the Georgian former rectory (now West Hanney House) and the thatched Plough close by.

At the time of writing the Plough, a timber-framed pub bought by villagers in 2015 and run as a community pub, is open, and the former Lamb pub is an Indian restaurant, Hanney Spice. The primary school, the village hall and the community shop are shared with East Hanney. Old raised footpaths, both listed, once kept walkers dry across the wet ground between the villages.

History

Name and early people

The name Hanney is usually explained as Old English for an island frequented by wild birds. In September 2009 a metal detectorist at a rally in the parish found a gold disc brooch set with garnets. Excavation then uncovered the grave of a young woman buried around the middle of the 7th century with knives, a spindle whorl and pots. Only about twenty brooches of this kind are known, most from Kent and East Anglia, and the Hanney brooch is the westernmost yet found. It has been displayed at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock.

Domesday and the manors

In 1086 West Hanney belonged to Walter Giffard, who held one estate himself and let another to two tenants, Osbern and Theodric. The main estate had been held before the Conquest by Earl Tostig, King Harold’s brother; it had 37 households between the two holdings, two mills and a church, held by Turold the priest. Giffard gave the village to his priory at Newton Longville in Buckinghamshire. When Henry V seized the lands of alien priories the manor passed to the Crown, and in 1441 it was granted to New College, Oxford. The smaller estate became the manors of Seymour’s Court and Andrew’s Court. From 1352 the rectory belonged to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury, who still held it in 1924.

The church

St James the Great was once dedicated to St Mary; a record of 1252 uses the old name. Some historians think it began as an early minster. The north wall of the nave dates from about 1150 and keeps a Norman doorway with chevron ornament, and the tower was added on the north side late in the same century. The chancel was rebuilt in the 15th century and the church was restored in the 19th. Inside are a late 12th-century font and a notable set of brasses, among them a 14th-century priest and the Ashcombes of Lyford. A memorial records the death of Elizabeth Bowles at the claimed age of 124. Five of the six bells were cast by Abraham Rudhall in 1702.

Village and enclosure

The Yate family of Lyford kept a dower house north-east of the church; its chimney carries their gate badge. The rectory, a red-brick house of 1724, is now West Hanney House. Hanney’s open fields were enclosed under an Act of 1803. The Lamb closed as a pub in 2008 and reopened as a restaurant in 2011, and the Plough became a community pub in 2015. West Hanney moved from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in 1974.

Things to see

• Church of St James the Great (Grade II*): Norman doorway, 12th-century font, brasses, Jacobean pulpit.
• The village cross on the green (Grade II), partly medieval.
• The Plough (Grade II), a thatched timber-framed pub opposite the church.
• West Hanney House (Grade II*), the Georgian former rectory, seen from the road.
• The Dower House, the Yate family’s 17th-century house (private).
• The listed raised footpaths across the low ground.