Charney Bassett is a village and civil parish on the river Ock, in the north of the Vale of the White Horse, about 4.5 miles north of Wantage. It was part of Berkshire until the boundary changes of 1974 moved it into Oxfordshire.
Size
1,209 acres (489 hectares) in 1924
Population
271 in 2001; 259 in 1851
Hundred
Ganfield/Gainfield
Poor law union
Faringdon
Registration district
Faringdon
Present-day local authority
Charney Bassett is in the Longworth Ward of the Vale of the White Horse District, Oxfordshire County Council
Grid reference
SU 37 94
Adjoining parishes in 1851
Buckland, Denchworth, Hinton Waldrist, Longworth, Lyford, Pusey and Stanford in the Vale
Genealogical resources
See Berks FHS Books for coverage of this parish in the society’s range of CDs.
See also Berkshire Record Office holdings.
Published local history
Bruce Hedge Charney Bassett watermill a description and brief history (2002) and J S Howe Charney Bassett through the centuries (1975) are in Oxford Central, Abingdon and Wantage libraries.
Charney Bassett Watermill and Charney Manor 1300 – 1970 are listed in the holdings of Longworth and District History Society‘s library.
Anglican church and parochial organisation
Charney Bassett was formerly a chapelry of Longworth parish. The living is a vicarage. The parish is now part of the benefice of Cherbury with Gainfield in the deanery of the Vale of the White Horse, in the archdeanconry of Berkshire within the diocese of Oxford.
St Peter’s churchwas built on the Saxon foundations of its predecessor in the twelfth century, and is Grade-I listed.
Other churches
A Wesleyan preacher was enumerated in the 1851 census, and a Wesleyan chapel was noted in 1924.
Schools
A schoolmistress was enumerated in the 1851 census.
In 1871 Miss Mary Dewe bequeathed £5 yearly to the infants’ and Sunday schools.
Village children now attend St James CofE Primary School at East Hanney.
Pubs
The Chequers claims to have existed since the early 1800s. www.chequerscharney.co.uk A publican was enumerated in the 1851 census, but no pub named.
Other local history
One mile north of the village and within the parish boundary lies Cherbury Camp, an Iron Age fortification. It has been claimed both for King Canute and Alfred the Great, but neither claim is taken seriously by historians.
Thirteenth-century Charney Manor is a Grade-I listed building, now used as a Quaker guest house and conference centre.
Charney Water Mill and its adjoining cottage are owned by Oxfordshire County Council. The mill is being restored by the Vale of White Horse Industrial Archaeology Group.
