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Recent’ Adderbury history — for it dates from Saxon times and its mellowed
parish church of St Mary the Virgin was started in the early 13th century and
largely completed by the 15th century — is of its importance as a Royalist
stronghold in the Civil War. The most dramatic episode in village history
concerns that war — when a Parliamentarian soldier outside the church gate shot
the vicar of Adder-bury, the Rev Dr William Oldys. The church has close links
with New College, Oxford and was beloved of Sir John Betjeman.
Adderbury House has housed troops from wars as far apart as the Civil and Second
World Wars. In the former war Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester and Prince
Rupert of the Rhine were Royalist cavalry commanders there; in the second, King
George VI visited his troops in 1942. During the 17th century the house was home
to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647—80), a fine lyrical and satirical
poet and a notorious Restoration rake.
Owned at various times by Dukes of Argyll, Adderbury House was in the possession
in the 19th century of Major Larnach. When his Adderbury-trained horse Jeddah
won the Derby at 100—1 and also won at Ascot to complete the ‘blue ribbon’ of
the Turf, the Major gifted the building of the village Institute. This was
opened, in great ceremony, in 1898. Seldom have winnings been more happily
invested! The Institute has been the setting of countless village events since
then, ranging from early instruction and sewing meetings to the present-day
Theatre Workshop productions, meetings of the over sixties, jumble sales and
Scout meetings.
The village name Adderbury has had several changes of spelling (it was Eadburg
in the Domesday Book). There was an abbess of a priory in Thanet, St Eadburg of
the Silver Pen, who lived from about AD 700 to 740, though it is uncertain
whether this St Eadburg had local connections, as there were at least seven
Royal ladies of this title in Mercia. However, the abbess, who had charge of 600
women, was considered an ideal patroness by Adderbury ladies of the WI in the
20th century, as her educational aims in the 8th century were their ideals too!
Their strikingly beautiful banner, designed by Miss Janet Blunt, incorporates
these pictorial themes.
Miss Janet Blunt figures prominently in village history. Daughter of an Indian
Army officer who settled his family in Adderbury in 1892, she wrote down from
word of mouth Morris dance tunes which had for generations been handed down from
father to son. Miss Blunt died in 1950 at the age of 91 and it was only the
timely intervention of her former maid that saved the manuscripts from the
bonfire. It is to these same tunes present-day Morris dancers cavort at their
annual Day of Dance around the village inns and on the green on the last
Saturday of April, each year. Generously, they are also shared and taught
throughout Oxfordshire.
The village green, with its majestic spreading chestnut tree, once held court to
visiting magistrates who meted out punishment to miscreants, by way of whipping
stool, ducking stool or the stocks. The latter (removed in 1885) were within the
memory of one of the earliest members of the WI at its foundation in 1920.
Adderbury has, since 1969, been several times winner of the title Best Kept
Village of North Oxfordshire and twice taken the Winner of Winners class. It is
clear the judges find its blend of warm honey-coloured stone, beautiful manor
houses and cottage gardens brimming over with flowers, incomparable.
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