Oxfordshire Historical Facts

The Domesday Book of 1086 records that Hook Norton had 76 villagers and two mills at the time.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that a Viking army raided the Hook Norton area in AD 913. Reports of a band of Hook Norton villagers arming themselves and attempting to fight a Viking raiding party have also been made, supported by finds in nearby fields.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in AD 917 the village of Hook Norton is recorded as Hocneratun

Hook Norton Baptist Church is among the oldest in Britain, having been founded 1640.

In 1650, a domestic servant at Duns Tew manor house named Anne Greene, was convicted of the infanticide of her stillborn child. She was hanged at Oxford Castle but survived after being presumed dead and was given a free pardon.

The parish of Duns Tew in Oxfordshire, had a watermill by 1279. It was still recorded in 1618 but seems to have disappeared by 1722.

Wantage once had two breweries which were taken over by Morlands of Abingdon.

Wantage is home to the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin, founded by the vicar of Wantage William John Butler in 1848. It was once one of the largest communities of Anglican nuns in the world.

Wantage is at the foot of the Berkshire Downs escarpment in the Vale of the White Horse.

The historic market town of Wantage (Oxfordshire) is the "Alfredston" in Thomas Hardy's novel 'Jude the Obscure' which was Thomas Hardy's last completed novel.