Coordinates: 51°45′18″N 1°04′19″W / 51.755°N 1.072°W / 51.755; -1.072

Waterstock
St. Leonard's parish church
Waterstock  Waterstock shown within Oxfordshire
Population	65 (2001 census)[1]
OS grid reference	SP6305
Civil parish	Waterstock
District	South Oxfordshire
Shire county	Oxfordshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Oxford
Postcode district	OX33
Dialling code	01865
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Oxfordshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Henley
List of places: UK • England • Oxfordshire

Waterstock is village and civil parish on the River Thame about 4.5 miles (7 km) west of the market town of Thame in Oxfordshire. The parish is bounded to the north and west by the river, to the south largely by the A418 main road, and to the east largely by the minor road between Tiddington and Ickford Bridge across the Thame. On the north side of the parish, the river forms the county boundary with Buckinghamshire as well as the parish boundary with Ickford and Worminghall.

Waterstock village is on a minor road north of the A418 and is surrounded by open farming land. In the village are about 50 houses and a farm along one main street.

History[link]

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Waterstock's toponym is derived from the Old English for "Waterplace".^{[citation needed]}

Waterstock Mill is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.^[2] It was most likely on the same site as the current mill, which is a 15th-century building on a small island in the River Thame. The mill a two-storey L-shaped building, with a timber frame filled in with brick nogging.^[2] It was rebuilt in the Elizabethan period.^[2] In 1957 it was converted^{[clarification needed]} and sold.

Many of the parish's fields show ridge-and-furrow strip cultivation. In 1279 there were probably about 200 inhabitants, but after the Black Death the population decreased to 51 persons over the age of 14.^{[citation needed]}

Waterstock's oldest buildings are the two thatched cottages, one thought to date from late in the 13th or early in the 14th century and the other from the 16th. Orchard End is a mediaeval cruck house, its smoke-blackened beams showing that it was originally a two-bay open hall house. The village's single street is flanked by cottages built of stone or local brick, some retaining the small buildings in the gardens, originally privies or pig-sties.^{[citation needed]}

At one end of the village, Home Farm is a 17th-century timber-framed house with its thatched barn and 17th-century granary. The 18th-century Park Farm is beyond.

The grounds of Waterstock House are next to the church. The manor house was built in 1787 to designs by the architect SP Cockerell.^[3] It was demolished in 1953^[2] or 1956^[3] after the servants' quarters were converted into the present substantial residence. The stone-built stables are 18th century^[3] and probably contemporary with the 1787 house. They are now the Waterstock Equestrian Centre.

Near Waterstock Mill is Bow Bridge: a small, single-arch brick bridge built for Diana Ashhurst in 1790.^{[citation needed]} By the entrance to Waterstock House is the Pump House dated 1898, a small building with a "Rhenish helm" roof reminiscent of a Saxon tower. Many of the villagers used to collect water from it until the village's mains water supply was installed in 1951.^{[citation needed]}

Opposite the church are Church Farm Cottages and the Old Rectory, a substantial stone-built 18th-century house, the only other 'gentlemen's house'. In the 20th century it was the home of the violinist Manoug Parikian until his sudden death on Christmas Eve 1987.^{[citation needed]} He is buried in St Leonard's churchyard.

Parish church[link]

Waterstock seems to have had a parish church since at least 1190.^[2] The current Church of England parish church of Saint Leonard was built at the end of the 15th century.^[2] The nave and chancel were rebuilt in 1790, and in 1858 the Gothic Revival architect G.E. Street restored the building.^[4] It is the burial place of the early-17th-century Puritan writer William 'Eternity' Tipping.

Remnants of mediaeval window glass were recovered after the English Reformation and have been inserted above the armorial Ashurst window. This window, together with monuments in the church, records the families of local squirearchy who inhabited the manor house and retained its patronage until 1957.^{[citation needed]}

As well as regular church services, meetings and concerts are held in the church.^{[citation needed]}

Economy[link]

Many of the houses in Waterstock have their own stables.^{[citation needed]} Waterstock House Training Centre was once the main equestrian centre of the area, and was once owned by the horse trainer Lars Sederholm.

Amenities[link]

Junction 8A of the M40 motorway and Oxford Services motorway service station are in the parish. There is also a public golf course.^[5]

The Oxfordshire Way traverses the parish and crosses the River Thame by Bow Bridge near Waterstock Mill.

There is a Waterstock and Tiddington Women's Institute.^[6]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Lobel, Mary D., ed. (1962). A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 7: Thame and Dorchester Hundreds. Victoria County History. pp. 220–230. 
• Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 828–829. ISBN 0-14-071045-0. 
• Oxfordshire Federation of Women's Institutes (1990). The New Oxfordshire Village Book. Villages of Britain. Countryside Books. ISBN 1-85306-090-9. 

External links[link]

Media related to Waterstock at Wikimedia Commons

v t e The District of South Oxfordshire Oxfordshire • County Council elections • District Council elections • Henley County Constituency • Wantage County Constituency Towns Didcot • Henley-on-Thames • Thame (Moreton) • Wallingford • Watlington (Christmas Common, Northend) Large Villages Benson (Preston Crowmarsh) • Berinsfield • Brightwell-cum-Sotwell (Brightwell, Mackney, Sotwell) • Chalgrove • Chinnor (Emmington, Henton, Oakley) • Cholsey (Winterbrook) • Crowmarsh (Crowmarsh Gifford, North Stoke, Mongewell, Newnham Murren) • Ewelme • Garsington • Goring-on-Thames • Great Milton • Horspath (Bullingdon Green) • Sandford-on-Thames • Shiplake (Lower Shiplake) • Sonning Common • Wheatley (Littleworth) • Woodcote Other Civil Parishes (Component Villages and Hamlets) Adwell • Aston Rowant • Aston Tirrold • Aston Upthorpe • Baldons, {Baldon Row, Marsh Baldon, Toot Baldon) • Beckley and Stowood (Beckley, Stowood) • Berrick Salome (Berrick Prior, Roke, Rokemarsh) • Binfield Heath • Bix and Assendon (Bix, Bix Bottom, Lower Assendon, Middle Assendon) • Brightwell Baldwin • Britwell Salome • Checkendon • Clifton Hampden (Burcot) • Crowell • Cuddesdon and Denton (Cuddesdon, Denton) • Culham • Cuxham with Easington (Cuxham, Easington) • Dorchester • Drayton St. Leonard • East Hagbourne (Coscote) • Elsfield • Eye and Dunsden (Sonning Eye, Dunsden Green, Playhatch) • Forest Hill with Shotover (Forest Hill, Shotover) • Goring Heath (Whitchurch Hill, Cray's Pond) • Great Haseley (Latchford, Little Haseley, North Weston, Rycote) • Harpsden • Highmoor (Satwell) • Holton • Ipsden • Kidmore End (Gallowstree Common) • Lewknor (Postcombe, South Weston) • Little Milton • Little Wittenham • Long Wittenham • Mapledurham (Trench Green, Chazey Heath) • Moulsford • Nettlebed • Newington (Great Holcombe) • North Moreton • Nuffield • Nuneham Courtenay • Pishill with Stonor (Pishill, Stonor, Maidensgrove, Russell's Water) • Pyrton (Clare, Standhill) • Rotherfield Greys • Rotherfield Peppard • Shirburn • South Moreton (Fulscot) • South Stoke (Littlestoke) • Stadhampton (Chiselhampton, Brookhampton, Ascott) • Stanton St. John (Woodperry) • Stoke Row • Stoke Talmage • Swyncombe • Sydenham (Kingston Stert) • Tetsworth • Tiddington-with-Albury (Tiddington, Albury) • Towersey • Warborough (Shillingford) • Waterperry with Thomley (Waterperry, Thomley) • Waterstock • West Hagbourne • Wheatfield • Whitchurch-on-Thames • Wilcote • Woodeaton Former Districts and Boroughs Bullingdon Rural District • Municipal Borough of Henley-on-Thames • Henley Rural District • Thame Urban District • Municipal Borough of Wallingford • Wallingford Rural District Crowmarsh Rural District • Culham Rural District • Goring Rural District • Headington Rural District • Thame Rural District Former Constituencies Oxfordshire County Constituency • Wallingford Borough Constituency • Abingdon Borough Constituency • Berkshire North or Abingdon County Constituency • Abingdon County Constituency List of Parliamentary constituencies in Oxfordshire • List of places in Oxfordshire • List of civil parishes in Oxfordshire