Deddington
Deddington is a town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England, south of Banbury. The parish includes two hamlets, Clifton and Hempton. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,146. It has been a market town since the 12th century. One of the Hundred Rolls of King Edward I from 1275–76 records Deddington as a borough.
Geography
The parish is about wide east–west, about wide north–south and has an area of about. Watercourses bound it on three sides: The River Cherwell to the east, its tributary the River Swere to the north and the Sowbrook to the south. Here the Cherwell also forms the county boundary with Northamptonshire. To the west the parish is bounded by field boundaries. In the southwest of the parish, about south of Hempton, is Ilbury Iron Age hill fort, atop a hill high. Near the fort is the site of a deserted medieval village, also called Ilbury. In 1980 the village site was rediscovered and Medieval pottery from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries was found.File:Ordnance Survey Drawings - Barford St. John.jpg|thumb|An Ordnance Survey map of 1814 of the course of the River Swere from Swerford to its confluence with the Cherwell. Hempton, Deddington and Clifton are on the road along the southern edge of the map. Clifton, Deddington and Hempton stand on a ridge of Jurassic ferruginous marlstone hills between the three watercourses. Clifton is about east of Deddington, at the eastern end of the ridge where it slopes down to the Cherwell. The ridges rises westward. Deddington is about above sea level. Hempton is about west of Deddington and about above sea level. The highest point of the ridge is on the western boundary of the parish, more than above sea level. The parish's topography is alluded to in a local rhyme:
Aynho on the Hill
Clifton in the Clay
Dirty, drunken Deddington
And Hempton high way —
Toponym, manor and castle
The toponym is derived from the Old English for "place of the people of Dæda". "Dæda" was short for Anglo-Saxon names such as Dædhēah. The toponym was spelt Dadintone around 950, Dædintun around 1050 and Dadinton in 1190. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, William the Conqueror's step-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, held the manor of Deddington. Odo had the outer bailey of Deddington Castle built in what is now the east of the town. The inner bailey on the east side of the castle seems to have been inserted in the 12th century, and buildings within the inner bailey seem to have been added later that century. In the 13th century the castle declined and fell into disrepair. In the 14th century it was demolished and its building stone re-used. In 1377 some of the stone was sold to Bicester Priory. There have been two archaeological excavations at the site, in 1947 and in 1978. The remains were reburied afterward and only the extensive earthworks are visible today.On 9 June 1312 the Earl of Pembroke was escorting Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall south after Gaveston's surrender to a group of rebellious earls at Scarborough Castle. The party stopped to rest at an inn in Deddington. Pembroke had guaranteed Gaveston's safety to King Edward II on pain of forfeiting his lands, but he left Gaveston at Deddington and went to visit his wife at Bampton Castle, about away. The Earl of Warwick with his men surrounded the inn and Gaveston, seeing that his guards would not fight, had to come outside to be chained and thrown in prison. A few days later Gaveston was taken to Warwick to be tried by the other earls and condemned to death. On 19 June he was taken to Blacklow Hill by the Earl of Lancaster and hacked to death by two Welshmen. This event is recalled by a chained eagle in Deddington's coat of arms.
The title of Lord of the Manor of Deddington is currently held by the Franco-Japanese Guilbert de Sannomiya family, whose French branch traces its origins to the landed nobility of the Boulonnais, established in the hamlet of Sehen, at Preures, in the Pas-de-Calais department. Historically, this family distinguished itself as landowners and cavalry officers serving in the Royal Troops of the Boulonnais, combining deep-rooted heritage with a military tradition. Through its union with the Japanese noble family Sannomiya, the lineage has brought to the title and the manor a historical and cosmopolitan dimension, ensuring the continuity of a feudal legacy open to the world.
Agricultural history
In 1591 a survey of Deddington reported that "the soyle... is verye firtile yeldinge greate store of corne and pasture". After the Black Death the town seems to have grown wealthy. The more successful peasant farmers increased their lands and in 1445 formed a Guild of the Holy Trinity. The guild had a Warden or Master, and owned a hall and property somewhere in the town. In 1523–24 Deddington residents paid £62 8s 10d in tax on personal estate. This was far more than Banbury, Adderbury or Bloxham.From the Saxon era onwards most of the land was farmed under an open-field system. The earliest and simplest such system had two arable common fields and left one fallow each year. This seems to have been Deddington's system until at least the 14th century, from which time there are several references to North and South fields. But there are also occasional Medieval references to East and West fields, and no plan of the fields is known to survive. In the 13th and 14th centuries Clifton and Hempton each had a two-field system separate from Deddington's. One of the Hundred Rolls from 1279–80 records that Ilbury did too.
By the 16th century Deddington's land management was evolving. A record from 1574 states that for at least the last 50 years a field called the Crofts was part of the common field system for three years out of four, but it and "the feyldes thereunto adiogning" were "hened" from St Matthias' Day to midsummer every fourth year. Clearly this group of fields at least was now part of a four-field system of crop rotation. This was certainly the case by 1808, when Deddington practiced a four-year rotation of fallow, wheat, barley, and peas or beans.
In 1807 a land surveyor reported to the Dean and Canons of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle that in Deddington parish he found "all the Grass Lands in the open Fields in a much worse state than most of the Commonable Land in the County, and some of the Arable Land in a wretched state of cultivation". He recommended that the land could be greatly improved, but only if it were first inclosed. But the fields of Hempton were intermixed with those of the neighbouring parish of Great Barford, so the two parishes would have to be inclosed at the same time. Accordingly, in 1808 Parliament passed the Deddington and Great Barford Inclosure Act 1807.
Commercial and social history
When Deddington became a market town is not known, but may have been in the 12th century. By 1393 it was chartered to hold two annual three-day fairs: one starting on 15 July and the other on Martinmas. By 1591 the July fair had been replaced by one on St Lawrence's day. In 1780 a third annual fair was introduced on 11 October. The Martinmas fair was the most important, and came to be called the "pudding-pie fair" after a type of plum pudding in hard-crust pastry that was baked in great numbers for the occasion. By the early 19th century the fair had been moved from Martinmas to 22 November. By 1863 the November fair was the only one to have survived. It continued until the 1930s.Deddington is where two old main roads cross: the Banbury – Oxford road running north – south and the Aynho – South Newington road running east – west. In 1755 the Kidlington and Deddington Trust was formed to turn the north – south road into a turnpike. In 1768 the Burford, Chipping Norton and Banbury Trust was formed to do the same to the east – west road. The trusts managed the roads for just over a century. The Burford, Chipping Norton and Banbury Trust was dissolved in 1871, followed by the Kidlington and Deddington Trust in 1875. When road classification was introduced in 1922 the Banbury – Oxford road was made part of the A423 and the Aynho – South Newington road was classified B4031. When the M40 motorway was completed in 1990 the Banbury – Oxford road was reclassified A4260.
Construction of the Oxford Canal started in Warwickshire in 1769, reached Banbury in 1778 and Aynho in Northamptonshire in 1787. Aynho Wharf is about east of Deddington, between Aynho and Clifton. The canal brought Warwickshire coal to the area, immediately reducing the local price of fuel. 4,106 tons of coal were unloaded at Aynho Wharf in 1793. In 1850 the Oxford and Rugby Railway opened between and. Its nearest station was next to Aynho Wharf. It was originally named "Aynho" but was later renamed. The railway remains open, but British Railways closed the station in 1964. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin spent much of his later life in Deddington. He wrote A History of Deddington, Oxfordshire, which the SPCK published in 1963. He contributed to Volume XI of the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, which includes Deddington and was published in 1983.
Clockmakers
In the 18th century Deddington had a succession of clockmakers, all from the Quaker community of north Oxfordshire. John Fardon was apprenticed to Thomas Gilkes of Sibford Gower and traded in Deddington from about 1723. His only son John Fardon was only 10 years old when his father died and seems to have been apprenticed in London. In Farndon's absence Thomas Harris, a Quaker from Sibford Ferris, ran the business in Deddington until about 1762, when he married a Fardon from North Newington. His history thereafter is not known but he died at Milton and is buried in the grounds of the Friends' Meeting House at Adderbury West. John Fardon returned from his apprenticeship and made longcase clocks. He too is buried at Adderbury West.Thomas Fardon made various timepieces including an Act of Parliament clock, longcase clocks and verge watches. He also installed the turret clocks at the parish churches of St Mary the Virgin, Kidlington in 1805 and Saints Peter and Paul, Deddington in 1833. John Fardon was a watchmaker who was known to have carried out repairs between 1801 and 1830. He moved his business to Woodstock in 1838 and maintained the clock at St Mary the Virgin, Kidlington from 1839 until 1862. Joshua Gibbs was either apprenticed to or employed by the Fardons. He traded first at Souldern and then succeeded the Fardons at Deddington, perhaps when John Fardon moved to Woodstock in 1838. Gibbs' dates of birth and death are not known but he was trading from 1805 until 1855.