Manors
Evidence of a Romano-British settlement has been found near the parish boundary on Iron Down, about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the present village.
The present village originated in Anglo-Saxon times. After the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror granted the manor to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who was both his step-brother and one of his military commanders. It is recorded amongst Odo's estates in the Domesday Book of 1086.
By 1206 Odo of Bayeux's former manor was let to one William of Paris, after whom the village was sometimes called "Paris Newton". A few years later William granted the estate to Ralph Ivals, after whom the village was called "Newington Jewell". However, by about the same time it was also being called "South Newington" to distinguish it from North Newington about 4 miles (6.4 km) to the north. From the 13th to the 15th century the manor was held by the Cranford family, after whom the village was sometimes called "Newington Cranford". From the 13th to the 16th century a smaller manor in South Newington was held by the Giffard family.
In the reign of Henry II (1154–89) Hugh de Chacombe, lord of the manor of Chacombe in Northamptonshire founded a priory of Augustinian canons in Chacombe and gave it a yardland in the parish of South Newington. The priory's ownership of the land and a house on it was recorded in 1279. When the priory was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 its property at South Newington passed to the Crown. The Crown sold the land to intermediaries or speculators, who sold it on to Magdalen College, Oxford.
Read more about this topic: South Newington