Marsh Baldon
Marsh Baldon is a village and civil parish about southeast of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. The parish also includes the hamlet of Little Baldon. At the 2021–2022 [United Kingdom censuses|2021 census] the parish had a population of 275. Marsh Baldon shares a grouped parish council with the neighbouring parish of Toot Baldon.
Archaeology
The course of the Roman road that linked Dorchester on Thames with Alchester passes through the parish on a north–south axis, and the eastern boundary of the village green approximately follows it. Roman coins and Romano-British pottery have been found in the parish. About south of the village, just east of the Golden Balls roundabout on the A4074 road, is the site of a set of Roman kilns. The site is now a scheduled monument.Manor
In the 11th century a Saxon called Azur held a manor of 10 hides at Marsh Baldon. After the Norman Conquest of England this manor was one of numerous estates granted to Miles Crispin, a Norman baron who may have been the first castellan of Wallingford Castle. Marsh Baldon remained part of the Honour of Wallingford until at least 1166. Baldon House was built in the 17th century or earlier as the manor house. It was extended in the 18th century, and wings were added in the 19th and early in the 20th centuries. Baldon House is a Grade II* listed building.Parish church
The Church of England parish church of Saint Peter dates from the 12th century, with 14th- and 15th-century alterations. St Peter's was restored in 1890 by Somers Clarke and John Thomas Micklethwaite. It is a Grade II* listed building. Above the south portal is a very fine example of a 12th-century canonical sundial. St Peter's 14th-century bell tower has a ring of five bells, the oldest of which was cast by John White of Reading in about 1480. Ellis I Knight of Reading cast two more, including the tenor bell, in about 1628. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast another bell in 1902 and finally the treble bell in 1954. There is also a Sanctus bell that was cast in about 1760 by Robert Wells of Aldbourne, Wiltshire.In the north aisle is a painting of the Annunciation by the Italian master Pompeo Batoni after Guido Reni. It hung in the chapel of Corpus Christi College, Oxford until 1794, when Sir Christopher Willoughby had St Peter's Church remodelled and donated the painting. Marsh Baldon is not the only Oxfordshire parish church to have a painting by Batoni. The parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Weston-on-the-Green, north of Marsh Baldon, has a Batoni altarpiece of the Ten Commandments.
The future Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Campbell Tait, as a young man, renowned for his Devotional dedication, added the arduous and financially unrewarding curacy of Baldon, to his tutorial responsibilities as soon as he was ordained.