Clifton Hampden - Economic and Social History

Economic and Social History

By the early part of the 13th century the parish was being farmed with an open field system. In the 15th century it was a three-field system and the fields were called East, Down and Ham. In 1726 the same fields were called Upper, Middle and Lower, respectively. The land was inclosed in 1770.

From at least the early part of the 14th century there was a ferry across the Thames between the village and Long Wittenham.

Several cottages in the village survive from the later part of the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries. By 1726 the village had three public houses. By 1786 there was one called the Fleur de Lys, and this was still in business by 1864. The Plough beside Abingdon Road was a public house by 1821; it still trades under the same name but is now a restaurant.

In 1736 the Parliament passed the first of several Acts to turn the main road between Abingdon and Dorchester into a turnpike. The section through Clifton Hampden ceased to be a turnpike in 1873. In 1922 the Ministry of Transport classified it as the A415 road. In 1928, Oxfordshire County Council built a new bridge for the A415 beside the 15th century one.

In 1822, the Thames Navigation Commissioners built the 0.5 miles (800 m) long Clifton Cut, a navigation that bypasses a shallow and difficult stretch of river. It ends with Clifton Lock, 0.5 miles (800 m) above Clifton Hampden ferry. In 1867, the ferry was replaced by Clifton Hampden Bridge, a brick structure designed by Sir G.G. Scott. This was a toll bridge until 1946, when Berkshire and Oxfordshire county councils took it over. The Barley Mow just on the far side of Clifton Hampden Bridge is in Long Wittenham parish. In 1889, the author Jerome K. Jerome featured the village and the Barley Mow, in his book Three Men in a Boat:

In 1844, the Great Western Railway opened an extension from Didcot to Oxford. The GWR opened a station on the main road between the village and Culham. The station is closest to Clifton Hampden but it is in Culham parish and the GWR called it Culham.

The Church of England school was built in 1847 and affiliated to the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. It had only one schoolroom until 1909, when an infants' room was added. In 1934 the school was reorganised as a junior school, with senior pupils being schooled in Dorchester. Since 1951 it has been a Church of England voluntary controlled primary school.

The village hall was built in 1896. It was in this hall that Radiohead used to practise when they first came together, at which point they were first known as 'On A Friday'.