Ickford
Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox UK place
Ickford is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority area of Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the boundary with Oxfordshire, about Template:Convert west of the market town of Thame.
The River Thame forms both the southern boundary of the parish and Ickford's part of the county boundary with Oxfordshire. A stream that is a tributary of the Thame bounds the parish to the west and north.
ToponymEdit
The village toponym is derived from Old English meaning "Icca's ford". The Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Iforde.Template:Sfn From the 12th to the 14th centuries it evolved through Ycford, Hicford, Hitford, Ikeford and IckefordeTemplate:Sfn before later reaching its present form.
ManorsEdit
The Domesday Book records that Miles Crispin held four hides of land at Ickford.Template:Sfn Crispin was linked with Wallingford Castle, and through him the manor of Ickford became part of the Honour of Wallingford.Template:Sfn In the 13th century the Appleton family were the lower lords of this manor.Template:Sfn It is not recorded who held this manor before the Norman Conquest of England.Template:Sfn
It is recorded that before the Conquest a second manor at Ickford was held by Ulf, a man of Harold Godwinson.Template:Sfn The Domesday Book records Robert, Count of Mortain as holding this second manor, with the Benedictine Grestain Abbey as his mesne lord.Template:Sfn By 1359 Wilmington Priory in Sussex, an English cell of the abbey, was the mesne lord.Template:Sfn By 1377 William de Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, who had succeeded to some of the de Mortain lands, was Ickford's overlord.Template:Sfn
Towards the end of the 12th century Bartholomew de Ickford was the lower lord of one of Ickford's manors, apparently that belonging to Grestain Abbey.Template:Sfn By the time his great-grandson John held the manor in 1302–03, the family carried the surname "atte Water".Template:Sfn William atte Water died in 1313, by which time the family held both manors and they seem to have been merged.Template:Sfn
Members of the Appleton and Ickford families granted lands at Ickford to Godstow Abbey in Oxfordshire and the Priory of St Frideswide, Oxford.Template:Sfn In the 14th century the atte Water family gave land to Bisham Priory in Berkshire.Template:Sfn Bradwell Priory also claimed the atte Waters had granted it land at Ickford.Template:Sfn In the 16th century the Bisham Priory lands passed to Thomas Tipping, who from 1585 held the "manors of Great and Little Ickford".Template:Sfn He died in either 1595Template:Sfn or 1601Template:Sfn and is commemorated by a large monument in the parish church.Template:Sfn Thomas's great-grandson Sir Thomas Tipping, who inherited the estate in 1627,Template:Sfn was a moderate Parliamentarian in the English Civil War. His son, also Thomas Tipping, inherited the estate in 1693Template:Sfn and was created a baronet in 1698. In 1703 he obtained an Act of Parliament that allowed him to sell the estate.Template:Sfn
In Little Ickford, Manor Farm or the New Manor House is a timber-framed building with a 16th-century south range and a 17th-century north block and staircase.Template:Sfn<ref name=LittleIckfordManor>Template:National Heritage List for England</ref> The walls of one of the ground floor rooms in the north block has late-17th-century decorative painting now largely concealed behind early-18th-century panelling.Template:Sfn<ref name=LittleIckfordManor/> The house is a Grade II* listed building.<ref name=LittleIckfordManor/>
Parish churchEdit
The Church of England parish church of Saint Nicholas dates from the late 12th or early 13th century.Template:Sfn The nave was built in about AD 1210, with a porch in the middle of the south side.Template:Sfn Relatively narrow three-bay north and south aisles were added in about 1230, with the south aisle absorbing the original porch and taking the porch's south wall for the limit of its width.Template:Sfn The north aisle has one Norman and Early English Gothic 13th-century lancet windows, one of which has a later rere-arch with cusped spandrels, each with a carved rosette.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The chancel has two 13th-century lancet windows in its north wall.Template:Sfn Near the westerly of these windows is a rectangular recess that may have been a squint.Template:Sfn In its south wall are another lancet window and a 13th-century doorway.Template:Sfn The Decorated Gothic east window is 14th-centuryTemplate:Sfn and has reticulated traceryTemplate:Sfn with ogees. The south wall of the chancel has at its east end a window from about 1350 that is said to have been brought from elsewhere, and towards the west end a 15th-century window with a depressed head.Template:Sfn Some of the stained glass windows are 20th-century work by Ninian Comper.Template:Sfn
The bell tower is substantially NormanTemplate:Sfn but the upper stages were remodelled in the 14th century.Template:Sfn The tower has a saddleback roof.Template:Sfn
In the nave some of the seats are 16th-century and there is a west gallery fronted with 17th-century panelling.Template:Sfn The pulpit and its tester are also 17th-century.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Restoration work was carried out on the building in 1856, 1875 and 1907.Template:Sfn The large stone monument to the first Thomas Tipping used to be in the north aisle, but in 1906 was moved to its present position in the chancel.Template:Sfn St. Nicholas' is a Grade I listed building.<ref>Template:National Heritage List for England</ref>
The west tower has three bells. The treble was cast in about 1599, possibly by George Appowell<ref name=DoveDetails>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> of Buckingham.<ref name=DoveFounders>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Ellis I Knight of Reading, Berkshire<ref name=DoveFounders/> cast the tenor in 1623.<ref name=DoveDetails/> George Chandler of Drayton Parslow<ref name=DoveFounders/> cast the youngest of the main bells in 1716.<ref name=DoveDetails/> There is also a Sanctus bell, cast by William Taylor's Oxford foundry<ref name=DoveFounders/> in 1847.<ref name=DoveDetails/>
The Puritan minister Calybute Downing held the living of the parish from 1632Template:Sfn but it was then conferred on Gilbert SheldonTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn in 1636. Sheldon already held the living of Hackney, received that of Oddington, Oxfordshire at about the same time as Ickford, and at some time also that of Newington, Oxfordshire. After the Restoration of the Monarchy, Sheldon was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1663. St. Nicholas' is now part of the Benefice of Worminghall with Ickford, Oakley and Shabbington.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Economic and social historyEdit
Ickford had a bridge over the River Thame by 1237, when repairs were ordered with oak from Brill Wood.Template:Sfn In that century the bridge was variously recorded as Wodebrugge or Widebrugge.Template:Sfn County boundary stones set into the present bridge of three stone arches suggest that it was completed in 1685.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The bridge is a scheduled monument.<ref>Template:National Heritage List for England</ref>
The recusant dramatic poet William Joyner lived at Ickford in the 17th century.Template:Sfn
The village hall was designed by the architects Dale and Son of Oxford and built in 1946.<ref name=Ickford>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The building is of five bays separated by arches vaulting from the floor. Its extensive roof and almost all of its walls are hung with wooden shingles,<ref name=Ickford/> possibly in response to the shortage of many types of building material after the Second World War. The hall was built entirely by a small party of volunteers from the parish:<ref name=Ickford/> an achievement commemorated by a painting over the fireplace in the hall.
AmenitiesEdit
Ickford has a 15th-century public house, the Rising Sun. A second pub, the Royal Oak, ceased trading in about 2000.Template:Citation needed Ickford has also a village shop and post office.
Ickford Combined School is a community primary school for children between four and eleven years old and has about 115 pupils. The school also serves the adjoining parishes of Worminghall and Shabbington. The school was opened in September 1906 and has a sports hall, which was opened in February 2006.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> There is a pre-school and an After School Club at the school.
Much of the parish is agricultural but being close to Oxford and junction 8A of the M40 Ickford is increasingly a commuter village.Template:Citation needed
For more than 60 years an annual tug of war with neighbouring Tiddington has been held each summer across the River Thame.Template:Citation needed