Tingewick

The earliest site in Tingewick may be the ring-ditches and other crop-marks in fields north of the village towards the watermill. Ring-ditches are often the remains of ploughed out Bronze Age round barrows. The ditches were dug to provide soil to mound up over a burial and once the mound is gone and the ditches are full up, they can only be seen from the air as cropmarks. There is also a possible Iron Age enclosure: a possible oval enclosure has been seen on aerial photographs south-east of Windbush Farm. No artefacts have been found on site, however, and so it is uncertain what date it might be.

A Roman road is thought to pass through the parish and may join up with the one at Stowe. A set of possible Roman baths was identified near the church in the 19^th century, but from the description it is likely that the building wasn’t that early. It was thought to be Roman because a villa had been excavated nearby in Stollidge Field in 1860-2. Dating of the villa relied on the coins that were found and these date to the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AD. Although ‘several wheelbarrows’ of pottery were found in the 19^th century, much of it was lost and therefore can’t help with the dating of the site. This villa may have had its own bath-house, which also makes it unlikely that there was a second set. However, a reinterpretation of the site suggests that it might have been a temple site. Many coins are found at temples.

Tingewick is recorded in Domesday and was on the edge of Bernwood Forest from before that time. Bernwood had been a hunting forest from the time of Edward the Confessor. It grew to its largest extent under Henry II. The whole area was not covered by woods; in the medieval period a forest was a place where deer roamed for hunting and so included open land, villages and fields. All those who lived in the forest were not allowed to hunt or even gather wood without a special licence from the king. Bernwood Forest was finally disafforested in the reign of James I in 1635, although it had been shrinking in size since the time of King John (1199-1216).

St Mary Magdalen’s church is the oldest standing building in Tingewick. It seems to date back to the 12^th century, though parts have been added since then, such as the chancel and tower in the 15^th century and the south aisle in the 19^th. Several other buildings in the parish are listed. Tingewick Hall used to be the rectory and, though it looks Elizabethan, was actually built in the 19^th century. There are records of an earlier rectory dating back to the 16^th century at the same site. The Manor House is mainly 17^th century in date, but incorporates a 15^th or 16^th century window and so may have used remains of an earlier manor house. There are 14^th century records of a dovecote, garden and watermill at Tingewick manor. Other listed buildings mainly date to the 17^th or 18^th century.

Archaeological fieldwork was undertaken in advance of the construction of Tingewick Bypass south of the village and it became clear that there were the earthworks of a deserted medieval village there. A field survey identified a hollow-way and several house platforms. The hollow-way was also examined in a trial trench before the site was destroyed by roadworks. Post-medieval tracks, field boundaries and a farmstead were also found in this work.

There are records that the medieval village cross, which identified the place for markets, was at the end of Cross Lane. During work for a sewer trench nearby an electronic survey identified a large stone that may be the base. It is likely that the village stocks was also here. Historical records also point to the presence of a brick kiln in the parish in the 16^th century. There is a contract dated 1534 between St Mary College of Winchester in Oxford and two brickmakers, one in Stanton St John in Oxfordshire, and one in Tingewick. The Tingewick brickworks had to make 800,000 bricks in three kilns! It is possible that the later brickworks recorded in the 19^th century were on the same site. We know that these Victorian brickworks were where the cemetery is now. There was another brickworks on Stockleys Lane, however.

A tributary of the River Ouse was dammed east of Tingewick Woods to create fishponds. The earliest record of them is from the 17^th century and by the middle of the 18^th century they had been drained and were used for pasture. Tingewick Mill is recorded as a working watermill in the 18^th century and continued in use until 1966 and the millpond may have been used to breed fish. There are records of a watermill somewhere in Tingewick in the 17^th century that may be the same one. It may be on the site of the original watermill mentioned in Domesday and a 14th century document. The mill buildings have now been converted into dwellings.

One of the later additions to the parish was the railway from Verney Junction to Banbury. A 19^th century railway bridge over the River Ouse was finally demolished some time before 1991. The 19^th century period also brought a couple of schools, one dated 1874 and the Sunday School dated 1828, both on Main Street. Industry in terms of lime kilns are marked on 19^th century maps south of Archway Cottages and south of the watermill.

Finmere airfield in Tingewick was initially an outstation of RAF Bicester. There was a civil airfield before the war and this was used by planes from Bicester in 1941 but was only officially an RAF base from 1942. It became a training base from 1943. The runways were not in a triangle like other airfields, but radiated like a fan from a central point. A military camp is also known from a vertical aerial photograph of 1946 near Grovehill Farm.