Goring (May 2018) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Economic • P
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VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Goring (May 2018) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Economic • p. 1 VCH Oxfordshire Texts in Progress Goring Economic History Goring’s economy remained mostly agricultural until recent times, combining sheep-and- corn husbandry with some dairying. However, the village’s location beside an important river crossing on the Icknield Way made it a centre for crafts, trades, and hospitality from an early date, whilst the river itself was used for milling, fishing, waterborne trade, and latterly boatbuilding. The opening of a railway station in 1840 encouraged the village’s Victorian expansion into a local service centre, gaining a wide array of shops, inns, and other businesses which it retained in 2017. Outlying hamlets remained predominantly agricultural, although pottery, bricks, and tiles were made at Goring Heath, where extensive woods were managed for timber, fuel, and woodland crafts including chair-making. A.W. Cocks’ grocery store in Goring High Street, c.1900. Photograph courtesy of Goring Gap Local History Society. The Agricultural Landscape Goring possessed a varied landscape of meadows and pastures fringing the Thames in the west, open fields on rising ground in the centre, and extensive woods, coppices, and heath punctuated with arable, pasture, and orchard closes on the Chiltern hills in the east. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Goring (May 2018) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Economic • p. 2 Assarting of woods for farmland is documented from the 12th century1 and is evidenced by medieval field-names such as ‘Niwelond’, ‘Stokkyngges’, and ‘Breache’,2 as well as the presence of numerous ‘shaws’ or strips of woodland left as field boundaries.3 Several of the river islands or eyots were used to grow osiers, reeds, and rushes.4 Inclosure was achieved both informally over time5 and under two private Acts of Parliament, the first of which in 1788 extinguished common rights on 850 a. of open fields, meadow, and pasture.6 The second inclosure in 1812 ended commoning on the 842-a. Goring heath,7 which by 1843 was ‘not barren and covered with furze, but a cultivated tract, enlivened with orchards, gardens, and cornfields’.8 However, a later writer observed: ‘the casual visitor, charmed with the scenery around, easily slides into theories of forest reclaimed, agriculture extended, and smiling villages dotting the landscape. But nature forbids; … the woodlands are the shelter of adjacent fields on a cold soil’.9 Certainly the ground there was generally stony with flints, reflected in field-names such as ‘Stony pece’ and ‘Cheseleyse’,10 and local chalk or lime had to be spread on the fields to maintain soil fertility.11 Nevertheless, over half the parish was under crop in 1848, when tithes were still owed on 2,606 a. of arable, 550 a. of woods, and 123 a. of meadow and pasture.12 Open Fields, Meadow, and Pasture By the 13th century (and probably much earlier) Goring had North and South fields and Gatehampton East and West fields,13 some of which contained lynchets on the steeper slopes.14 By 1300 the North field had been subdivided into Great and Little North field,15 perhaps to facilitate the three-course rotation then being followed,16 and five open fields were named in a survey of Goring manor in 1674.17 Gatehampton’s fields remained open in 1 Eynsham Cart. I, pp. 110–11. 2 Goring Charters, I, nos 7, 155; OHC, E1/M1/CR/19; cf. PN Oxon. I, 55–6. 3 Bodl. MS C17:49(171); OHC, PAR115/16/H1/1–2; P. Preece, ‘Medieval Woods in the Oxfordshire Chilterns’, Oxoniensia 55 (1990), 57. 4 Berks. RO, D/A2/c150, f. 32; OHC, F XIV/21, ‘Rod Eyot’; ibid. DV/XII/27, ‘Withy Eyots’. 5 Below (early inclosures). 6 Inclo. Act, 27 Geo. III, c. 5; OHC, Goring inclo. award. 7 Inclo. Act, 49 Geo. III, c. 154; OHC, Goring heath inclo. award; ibid. PAR115/16/H1/1–2. 8 J.G. Robertson (ed.), The Environs of Reading, I (1843), 16. 9 E.A. Reade, Allnutts Charity: The Schools at Goring Heath (1877), 14. 10 TNA, E 315/406/1, ff. 39–40, the last meaning ‘gravelly leaze’; cf. PN Oxon. I, 55. 11 W. Barefield-Hutt, Hardwick (2010), 15; below (quarrying). 12 OHC, tithe award. A quarter of the parish was by then tithe-free: above, manors (tithes). 13 Goring Charters, I, nos 3, 9, 19, 23, 34. Goring’s North field was mentioned c.1180: J. Blair, ‘The Foundation of Goring Priory’, Oxoniensia 51 (1986), 194–6. 14 Goring Charters, I, nos 9, 27, 34; II, no. 254; HER, PRN 15348. 15 Goring Charters, I, nos 34, 53; II, no. 194. 16 Eynsham Cart. I, pp. 346–7. 17 Great and Little North, Red Cross, Summerhill, and Little: OHC, O15/4/M2/1. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Goring (May 2018) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Economic • p. 3 1681 but were probably inclosed informally soon after.18 Goring’s were inclosed in 1788, when a total of 832 a. lay in Great North (274 a.), Summerhill (270 a.), Spring (formerly Little North, 94 a.), Lockstile (66 a.), Sheepcot (45 a.), Red Cross (44 a.), and Little (39 a.) fields, all on the lower ground surrounding the village.19 Common meadows lay in a narrow band beside the Thames in both Goring (south of the village) and Gatehampton,20 where by the 13th century strips were allocated on an annual basis.21 Gatehampton’s common meadow, still held in lots in 1535, was perhaps inclosed together with its open fields c.1700,22 and Goring’s comprised only 17 a. at its inclosure in 1788, when it was known as Town mead.23 In 1279 Goring and Gatehampton manors possessed respectively 4 a. and 3 a. of meadow in demesne,24 and a survey of Goring manor in 1674 accounted for only 13 a. of meadow, all in common.25 The scarcity of the resource attracted high prices, Goring priory’s demesne meadow in 1535 being valued at 20d. an acre compared with 1–4d. for arable.26 From the Middle Ages both the open fields and common meadows were available for grazing at certain times of year,27 and both Goring and Gatehampton also had designated common pastures, the former (60 a. in 1279)28 including ‘Stapelmeresfeld’ in 129729 and perhaps also Summer hill, where in 1568 a farmer was ordered not to pasture his sheep until they had all been shorn.30 In 1681 a weaver left his wife a cow common in Gatehampton’s Town moor,31 and in 1758 pigs, cows, and horses were by custom released into Goring’s open fields a fortnight before sheep. Town mead was then opened annually to animals at Lammas (1 August).32 By inclosure in 1788 only a handful of small cow commons remained, mostly on the edges of open fields and known as ‘linchets’.33 By far the largest area of common pasture was Goring heath, an upland expanse in the east of the parish comprising trees, furze, and grass, the last primarily in greens such as Batchelor’s green at Collins End. Little heath was a detached part of the common lying a 18 OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 120/4/24. 19 Ibid. Goring inclo. award; ibid. P432/7/M1/1; cf. BL, Add. MS 78123 A. 20 OHC, PAR115/16/H1/1–2. 21 Goring Charters, I, nos 19, 20, 24, 61. 22 Valor Eccl. II, 205; above. 23 OHC, Goring inclo. award; ibid. P432/7/M1/1. 24 Rot. Hund. II, 778. 25 OHC, O15/4/M2/1. 26 Valor Eccl. II, 205–6; cf. TNA, E 315/406/1, ff. 39–40, where a price of 2s.–2s. 6d. an acre is mentioned. 27 Eynsham Cart. I, pp. 346–7; below (medieval farming). 28 Rot. Hund. II, 778. 29 Goring Charters, I, no. 44; II, no. 215. 30 OHC, E1/M2/CR/6. 31 Ibid. MS Wills Oxon. 120/4/24. Perhaps ‘Town piece’ in 1809: ibid. PAR115/16/H1/1–2. 32 Ibid. E1/M1/CR/25. 33 Ibid. Goring inclo. award; ibid. P432/7/M1/1; cf. ibid. Hen. I/iv/36. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Goring (May 2018) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Economic • p. 4 short distance west of Cray’s Pond.34 Lords and tenants of all manors in the parish anciently had common rights there, both for grazing animals (mainly cattle, sheep, and horses, but also geese) and collecting furze and fuel,35 as well as some from neighbouring Mapledurham36 and Whitchurch,37 whose lady in 1279 paid Goring’s lord 5s. a year for the right to pasture her beasts.38 An attempted inclosure of c.80 a. of heath in 1650 was resisted with the aid of Reading Corporation,39 and a Chancery case later in the century settled the heath’s division into three zones pertaining to Goring, Goring Priory, and Elvendon manors.40 Those remained until parliamentary inclosure in 1812, when the lady of Gatehampton’s claim to manorial rights there was rejected.41 The vicinity of Cray’s Pond as shown on the 1809 Goring Heath inclosure map (in OHC). Note the mixture of early inclosures and newly allotted parcels of former common heath. 34 Ibid. PAR115/16/H1/1–2; 35 TNA, WARD 2/8/27/3; Valor Eccl. II, 205; Cal. Pat. 1594–5, 82; OHC, E1/H/6–7. For geese, ibid. E1/M2/E/5. 36 OHC, E1/3/1D/8. 37 Ibid. E1/10/18D/1–2; E1/M1/CR/19. 38 Rot. Hund. II, 776. 39 Berks. RO, R/AZ3/4/45.