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Letcombe was first recorded as Regis in the reign of Richard II, but hundreds
of years earlier it had been a Royal manor of the kings of Wessex, passing to
William the Conqueror in 1066. King Stephen granted it to the Abbey of Cluny in
France in 1136, and later kings had a hunting lodge here. The Old Manor was the
original manor house. Antwicks Manor, once an ancient moat house, was rebuilt at
the end of the 19th century. Boss Croker, who had made his millions in New
York, turned it into a neo-Elizabethan mansion and headquarters of his racing
stables. He also invented its name. One Bonfire Night in the early 1900s, a
blazing effigy of a later owner of Antwicks was carried on a cart up to the iron
gates. The crowd tried to tear down the gates and, from the steps of the
Greyhound Inn, the Riot Act was read for the last time in England.
The third manor house in the village is more recent and houses the Letcombe
Laboratory, now owned by the international firm of Dow Elanco. There used to be
a story that another owner, an Edwardian lady, was so shocked by two naked
statues in the grounds that she ordered them to be sunk in the lake. In 1982,
when the lake was dredged, the 6 ft high white marble statue of a man was found
a 2nd century Roman statue of the hero Hercules, which was later sold for
28,000. His female companion could not be traced, but there used to be tales of
a woman in white who haunted the banks of the Letcombe Brook after drowning
herself for love. The Letcombe Laboratory is visited by a ghostly but friendly
nun.
St Andrews church stands on a mound at the centre of the village, near where
the two streams meet. An earlier church is mentioned in the Domesday Book, and
parts of the present church date from the 12th century. The east window contains
fragments of 14th century glass which have recently been reassembled. An obelisk
in the churchyard records the death of George King Hipango, a Maori chief who
came to England to train as a Christian minister. He died here of tuberculosis
when he was 19 years old, while staying at the vicarage. There are many
interesting buildings in the village, from the church with its partly 12th
century tower to the late 19th century Old Bakery, and including thatched
cottages such as Regis Cottage with its carvings of angels, the thatched Manor
Farm, the two dovecotes, the Gothick gatehouse to the Letcombe Laboratory, the
Georgian Hollies and the Victorian vicarage.
Letcombe Regis is still an agricultural and racing village with four stables.
Visitors find they need to drive carefully along the winding roads as they meet
strings of horses, promenading ducks, occasional flocks of sheep, and even a
sleeping dog in the road, as well as numbers of parked cars. Many people work
away from the village at Harwell and the Rutherford Laboratory or in nearby
towns. The village school is very much part of the community. The Cricket Club,
the Gardening Club, the WI, bellringers and the Letcombe Singers, are some of
the clubs and societies.
Up on the Downs above the village is the Court Hill Ridgeway Centre, a new youth
hostel made out of five old barns. A few hundred yards to the west stands the
Iron Age hill fort of Letcombe Castle, also known as Segsbury Camp. The story is
still told of a great battle fought at Letcombe Castle. The blood from the
slaughter came pouring down Castle Hill and the villagers shouted Let the blood
come! Let it come! Let come! and so the village, according to legend, was
named.
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