Latimer

The Chess Valley Archaeology and History Society have done a great deal of the fieldwalking in this parish and it is from these investigations that we know about the prehistoric remains. Mesolithic flints including a tranchet axe-head, core and several flakes are known from Cowcroft Wood; a large Mesolithic to Neolithic flint scatter was recorded near Latimer Park Farm and consisted of over 500 flakes, over 200 blades, 20 cores, microliths, saws and an arrowhead; thirteen Neolithic flint flakes were found at Jasonhill Farm; and 81 Bronze Age flint flakes and one blade were found at Brockhurst Farm. Iron Age quern fragments was found during tree clearance at Codmore Wood.

Latimer Villa is actually in Chenies parish, but there are a few Roman remains known from Latimer parish itself. These include the Roman road that passes next to Latimer villa and some quern fragments found at Frith Wood and Hockley Farm.

Pottery making seems to have been important in Latimer parish, particularly at Ley Hill, where fifteenth to sixteenth century pottery kilns have been found at Joiner’s Close, where 4499 sherds of pottery were found when digging the foundations of a bungalow; at Beverley one was found when a drainage trench was dug; and lots of wasters and a few kilns were also excavated on Leyhill Common, where a medieval to post-medieval enclosure also stood, but is now damaged by the golf course. In other places the finds of pottery seem to indicate settlement instead of industry. Many thirteenth to fourteenth century pottery sherds were found along Botley Road and twelfth to thirteenth century pot was found in Potter’s Field in a fieldwalking survey.

Historic documents can also shed light on the parish in the medieval period. Blackwell Hall seems to have been the site of a manor house. The surviving house is sixteenth century. Human bone was found in the garden, which may suggest the presence of a chapel. Latimer House is on the site of another manor house, which also had a deer park attached, according to a fourteenth century document. Latimer Mill is also recorded in historic documents as the site of a fulling mill and corn mill in the fourteenth century. Blackwell Mill is recorded in the thirteenth century and by the nineteenth was a paper mill. By the eighteenth it was a sawmill. St James’ chapel is also mentioned in the fourteenth century but was rebuilt in the nineteenth. It is thought that St Mary Magdalene’s church was on the site of this chapel.

Several brickworks are known in the parish in later centuries, such as Cowcroft Brick kiln and Shepherd’s Farm, Botley. Chalk and clay pits were also dug to support these brickworks and are recorded on nineteenth century maps around the parish, such as at Frith Wood or at Tooley’s Croft.

Most of the listed buildings in the parish date to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, though some are a little older, with Meadham’s Farmhouse being sixteenth century, for example. Cherry Tree Farm and Orchard Cottage are seventeenth century and the Old Rectory is eighteenth.