Swyncombe intro - Victoria County History

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VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Swyncombe (Apr. 2012) • © University of London • p. 6 north a prehistoric ring ditch lies next to Icknield Way. 34 A late 3rd-century Roman coin hoard discovered along the Roman road south of Ewelme Park may not indicate settlement, although Roman occupation is known nearby. 35 The most significant archaeological remains are also the most enigmatic and difficult to date. A boundary dyke running along the northern edge of the downs for about a mile, and commanding Icknield Way, may be of Bronze-Age or Anglo-Saxon origin, and could have been intended either for defensive or agricultural use. 36 A square enclosure at Digberry Farm is also problematic, but possibly marks an Anglo- Saxon farmstead. 37 More certain evidence of Anglo-Saxon activity is afforded by the parish’s place names. Swyncombe means pig valley, the element cumb being particularly characteristic of the Chilterns. Cookley is probably derived from Cuca’s lēah (or wood-pasture), and several field names also include Anglo-Saxon elements. 38 Park Corner was known in the 18th century as Stanley or Stanvill, the Old English stān presumably referring to the abundant flint in the area. 39 Population from 1086 No tenants were recorded on the manor in 1086, when it was presumably administered as demesne. The late 11th-century church nevertheless suggests a small resident population. 40 Around 26 tenants were named c.1248, and in 1279 there were 10 serfs or servi and 11 cottars, suggesting a population of 80–100. 41 Seven people including the prior of Bec paid tax in 1306, but mid 14th-century plague seems to have had a serious long-term effect, since in 1377 only 16 adults aged over 14 paid the national poll tax. 42 In 1524 the parish was taxed with places in Nuffield, 34 HER, PRN 5344. 35 Ibid. 2019; C.M. Kraay, ‘A Third Century Hoard of Roman Coins from Ewelme’, Oxoniensia 17/18 (1952/1953), 234–5; VCH Oxon. XVI, 201. 36 HER, PRN 13608; VCH Oxon. II, 307, 343; Bridge, Swyncombe, 20. 37 HER, PRN 2026; Bridge, Swyncombe, 20–1; C.R. Hart, ‘Digberry Farm, Swyncombe’, CBA Group 9 Newsletter 4 (1974), 29; O.G.S. Crawford, ‘The Chiltern Grim’s Ditches’, Antiquity 5 (1931), 170–1; above, Nettlebed, par. intro. (early settlement). 38 PN Oxon. I, 136–8; Oxon. Atlas, 22–4; above, Nuffield, par. intro. (early settlement). 39 Par. Colln, III, 300; OHC, par. reg. transcript, s.a. 1726–7; cf. Oxon. Atlas, 22; below (built character). 40 VCH Oxon. I, 419; below, relig. hist. 41 M. Chibnall (ed.), Select Documents of the English Lands of the Abbey of Bec (Camden 3rd ser. 73, 1951), 87–9; Rot. Hund. II, 757–8; M.T. Pearman, ‘Notes on Swincomb’, OAS Trans. 48 (1906), 6–8. For their social status, below, econ. hist. (medieval agric.); social hist. 42 TNA, E 179/161/10; Poll Taxes 1377–81, ed. Fenwick, II, 295; below, social hist.
VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Swyncombe (Apr. 2012) • © University of London • p. 7 and few Swyncombe people contributed to the lay subsidies of the later 16th century. 43 Thereafter the population rose slowly. From the 1570s baptisms usually outnumbered burials, averaging 4.6 a year (compared with 3.2 burials) in the period 1570–1700. 44 Thirteen households were assessed for hearth tax in 1662, 97 adults were mentioned in 1676, and a population of about 200 was reported in 1718. 45 During the 18th century the average number of baptisms rose to 5.8 a year compared with 4.5 burials, 46 and 40 houses were mentioned in 1738, rising to 50 in 1759 and 55 in 1771. 47 By 1801 there were 53 houses and a population of 285, rising to 70 houses and 367 people thirty years later. 48 The population peaked in 1861, when 446 people occupied 80 houses. Thereafter it fell to 308 in 72 houses by 1891. In the 20th century the population fluctuated between 342 (in 1901) and 280 (in 1981), the number of households rising from 79 to 102 during the same period. In 2001 a total of 260 people occupied 112 houses. 49 Medieval and Later Settlement As elsewhere in the Chiltern uplands, medieval settlement was dispersed. The origins of individual hamlets and farmsteads are generally untraceable, although some must have existed by the late 11th century when the present church was built. Any tenant housing next to the church was probably removed in the 16th or 17th century, when the mansion house was rebuilt by resident lords, 50 and in the early 18th century about half of the parish’s 40 houses were reportedly situated at Park Corner, with a further eight at Cookley Green and the same number at Russell’s Water, which lay mostly in Pishill parish. Then and presumably earlier the houses at Cookley Green and Park Corner were arranged around small greens, 51 while a few 43 TNA, E 179/161/198; E 179/162/258; E 179/162/317; E 179/162/346; E 179/163/381; above, Nuffield, par. intro. (popn). 44 OHC, par. reg. transcript (based on decennial totals 1570–1699). 45 TNA, E 179/164/504; Hearth Tax Oxon. 40 (listing only 7 houses); Compton Census, ed. Whiteman, 424; B.J. Enright, ‘Rawlinson’s Proposed History of Oxfordshire’, Oxoniensia 16 (1951), 70. 46 OHC, par. reg. transcript (based on decennial totals 1700–99). 47 Secker’s Visit. 157; ORO, MSS Oxf. Dioc. d 557, f. 98; d 563, f. 129. 48 Census, 1801–31. 49 Ibid. 1841–2001. 50 Below, manor (Swyncombe House); relig. hist. 51 Jefferys, Oxon. Map (1767); Davis, Oxon. Map (1797); Par. Colln, III, 300; Enright, ‘Rawlinson’s Proposed History of Oxfordshire’, 70; VCH Oxon. VIII, 131–2.
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