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The parish of South Moreton was part of the Blewbury Hundred in the Domesday
Book. It extends from the northerly boundary with Wittenham edge to Mill brook
and its tributary Hakkas brook in the south, an area of approximately 1,350
acres. It was once part of Berkshire. Part of the parish boundary brook called
Tibbald was once the sheepwash where local farmers drove their sheep for
dipping.
From pre-Conquest times the settlement was a prosperous place supporting four
manor houses. In 1199 Robert de Sanderville held the moated manor house on the
north side of the village street. The manor house of Bray, with Tudor remains,
has now been converted into two cottages near to the present-day Hall Farm. The
terraces of the manor house of Adresham are traceable on the south side of the
street. The hamlet of Fulscot, also mentioned in Domesday, lies to the west of
the village and there is a manor house where a moat can be traced and buildings
and cottages supporting a mixed farm.
Malting was a staple in Elizabethan times and there was a forge and a village
pound. The village stocks, last used in 1838, were situated where Manor Lane
meets the main village street, known today as Cross Tree. There were many small
businesses such as saddler, baker, grocer, boot and shoe maker, blacksmith,
wheelwright and carpenter, bricklayer, tailor and dressmaker.
There was a paper mill and a corn mill, which was possibly the mill valued at
twelve shillings in Domesday. The (corn) mill house was hired out as a hospital
during the smallpox epidemic of 1799. This mill was also used as a rag store
where the rags were prepared and then sent down the brook in flat-bottomed boats
to the paper mill, located near to the present railway arch over the Mill brook.
There are few remains as the mill was burnt down in 1825, and although rebuilt,
it suffered the same fate 13 years later.
The church of St John the Baptist was built on the site of a chapel which
overlooked the causeway that connected the brook crossing-point to the village.
The original chapel was a stopping-point for medieval pilgrims following the
footsteps of St Birinus, who journeyed from Churn Knob near Blewbury to
Dorchester, where he founded the abbey. This pilgrimage is revived each year on
the first Sunday in July but the pilgrims now cross the brook by the bridge at
the mill and stop for refreshments in the village. The church has a rare Saxon
doorway, which is blocked up, and near the gate stands a mighty yew tree reputed
to be 1,600 years old.
In 1850 the Great Western Railway was built and the main line from London ran
across the parish north of the village street. Gravel and sand were extracted
locally and used in its construction. Some local men worked on the line and at
the important goods marshalling yards in the west of the parish.
A nameless shepherd, who tended sheep by the wayside, left 10 to parish
charity. This amount, together with 1,000 sterling given by Edward Sherman Esq
of London in 1863, formed the South Moreton Consolidated Charity, the annual
proceeds thereof to be distributed amongst the poor of the parish. Edward
Sherman had lived at one of the manors with his uncle Sadgrove, who is reputed
to have boxed his ears. He then ran off to London and later became the largest
coach proprietor in the country with 17,000 horses at work in various parts. The
Consolidated Charity still divides proceeds among the villagers during the
Christmas period.
Anchor Inn, now a private house, was once the site of much merrymaking when the
Whitsun Feast was held there, with swingboats, coconut shies and dancing on the
barrel to accordion music.
Hilaire Belloc, the French-born writer, lived in the village and the name of his
son Peter Belloc appears on the war memorial in the church.
Village legend recounts two interesting ghost stories from the past. In 1804 a
local wheelwright hanged himself in a barn. Shortly afterwards an apparition
terrified several people in the stackyard south of the barn. This alarming
situation led to no less than eleven local clergy meeting together to exorcise
the ghost.
The inhabitants of a cottage on the edge of the village invented stories of
ghostly happenings, desperately hoping for a reduced rent. They said that
candles would apparently go out, rekindle and then explode. A bible would
suddenly tumble across the floor and gravel was thrown up at the windows. The
story does not state whether they were successful with the rent reduction!
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