Addington

Several prehistoric artefacts have been found in and around Addington village. Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age flint flakes, blades, a core and a borer have been found lying on the surface of ploughed fields. Much Roman pottery, tile and quernstone fragments have also been found. This is to be expected as it has been known for some time that a Roman road passes through the parish.

Some medieval and post-medieval pottery has also been found lying on the surface of ploughed fields, and the remains of medieval settlement such as house platforms and trackways have been seen on aerial photographs. This would suggest that Addington was bigger than it is today in the medieval period. Place-name evidence of Gallows Gap and a documentary source from the fourteenth century mention the site of a gallows on the parish boundary with Winslow. The church incorporates some of the medieval building though it is mostly nineteenth century. The pillar piscine dates to the twelfth century, the tower, arcades and chancel arch date to the fourteenth century and the door-way to the fifteenth century. The stained glass in the windows is seventeenth century Flemish glass, presumably installed in the nineteenth century.

There are historical records of a windmill and of the manor house in the sixteenth century and part of the old seventeenth century manor house still survives, though it was drastically reduced in size and height in the nineteenth century. There is a tradition that the manor house had an ice-house in the gardens but there does not seem to be any documentary or physical evidence for this. Some stocks of uncertain date survive, though much repaired, in a stable block. The current manor house is twentieth century but the gardens retain some of their nineteenth century layout. The Old School House is of nineteenth century date, reflecting a Victorian trend towards mass education.