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Travellers north on the busy A423 from Shillingford can see across the vast
ploughed field to the sturdy crenellated tower of Dorchester Abbey; they leave
the new bypass and enter the village over the long curved bridge spanning the
willow-lined river Thame as it winds its mile long way down to join the Thames.
The river and the abbey have been the main influences in the history of this
beautiful village.
In AD 635 the king was baptised in Dorchester. The Christian King Oswald of
Northumbria wished to marry the daughter of the king of the West Saxons, King
Cynegils. Cynegils became a Christian having been converted by Birinus, the
‘Apostle of Wessex’. The two kings gave Birinus land on which he built his first
church, probably this first Dorchester Cathedral was timber-built. (Soon after
he dedicated a church in Winchester which later became Winchester Cathedral). In
the abbey is a reconstruction of the original shrine to St Birinus, a stone from
which was placed in a silver processional cross, carried on a recent pilgrimage
to Winchester and presented to the bishop.
Following the Danish Invasion, the Dorchester diocese stretched from the Thames
to the Humber. After the Norman Conquest, Dorchester’s importance decreased.
Remegius, the new Norman bishop had his seat transferred to Lincoln. Later a
house of Augustinian canons was set up and during the next three centuries they
built the magnificent abbey. At this time Wallingford, Oxford and Abingdon were
the flourishing market towns, and Dorchester, apart from the abbey, was just a
village.
There are no traces of the monastery buildings destroyed on the orders of Henry
VIII, only the Guest House survived to become the grammar school in 1652.
There have been many restorations of the abbey over the years (early last
century much of it was ruinous). The last major effort was in 1970 when there
was another ‘royal occasion’ when the rededication was attended by the Queen
Mother.
The main road through the village, called the High Street, has many interesting
houses, some dating back to the early 15th century, but over the years they have
been repaired, refronted, or reroofed making their study fascinating. Cruck
construction, thatched cob walls, Elizabethan jettied houses, herringbone
noggins and many other architectural features can be found.
Near the bridge, built in 1815, is the little toll house, for this road through
the village became one of the first turnpike roads in Oxfordshire and two of the
15th century coaching inns still remain, the George with its gallery and
external staircase and the White Hart which had its coaching yard at the back.
A hundred years ago the population was just under a thousand. Many of the men
were agricultural workers and the village had many small shops and ten public
houses; there were butchers, millers, carpenters, a tailor, baker, blacksmith,
wheelwright, undertaker, grocers, carriers and coal merchant — a typical self
sufficient village. There was one unusual employer, a Missionary College where
young clergy were trained for work overseas.
Twenty men were killed in the First World War. After the war the first council
houses were built, rehousing some of the families living in primitive one up,
two down cottages. Dorchester was not affected by the Depression, for there was
plenty of work in the new Morris Motors and Pressed Steel factories at Cowley,
and also at the Ordnance Depot at Didcot. Some men cycled and some even had cars
to get to work. There were frequent buses, to Cowley for work and to Oxford,
Reading and London. New houses were built on the Abingdon and Oxford roads.
There was a flourishing school which included one of the new senior schools. It
took children aged from eleven to fourteen from the surrounding villages, those
travelling less than three miles were provided with bicycles, others were
brought in by bus. School dinners were ten pence a week. It was a lively
friendly community. The cows walked up the street for milking as two small farms
remained.
September 1939 brought the evacuees to Dorchester; this so-called safe village
(surrounded by airfields!) was bulging. Part of the old Missionary College
became a school, the primary school worked a shift system, and the biggest room
in the senior school had a class of 70 pupils! Most of the mothers did not stay
long, they did not like the lack of running water and indoor sanitation of most
of the cottages. The children settled in and enjoyed the countryside, although
there was a gradual drift back to London.
After the war the character of the village changed completely. Mains water and
drainage were laid on and then any spare bit of land was built upon including
the two small farms; small cottages were bought and improved and it became a
much sought after village. (The population is still just about a thousand.)
Luckily young people came in as well, so there is still a flourishing primary
school; the senior school became a comprehensive moving to a larger site in the
new, mainly council built, development on the disused airfield in the north of
the parish now named Berinsfield after our first bishop, St Birinus.
Today, it is still a lively friendly village with clubs or societies catering
for all ages and for all tastes. The lakes of the old gravel pits support
sailing clubs and are a paradise for birdwatchers with their enormous flocks of
winter migrants. Throngs of visitors come to enjoy the river and to be uplifted
by the splendour of the abbey. The old grammar school is still a place of
learning as a small museum and weary travellers can be refreshed in the tearooms
in the old Guest House of the abbey.
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