Location
Stanford in the Vale is a village, civil and ecclesiastical parish about 3.5 miles south-east of Faringdon, on the A417 road from Faringdon to Wantage. The parish belonged to Berkshire until the local government boundary changes of 1974, when it was transferred to Oxfordshire.
The River Ock, with its tributaries Frogmore Brook and Holywell Brook, flows through the east of the parish, and the Stutfield Brook forms its eastern boundary.
Local place names include Chinnan/Chinham, Bedlam Farm, Bowling Green House, Park Farm, Sheepcroft Hill
Size
2,927 acres (1,185 hectares) in 1924
Population
1,881 in 2001; 1,032 in 1851
Hundred
Ganfield/Ock
Poor law union
Faringdon
Registration district
Faringdon
Present-day local authority
Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire County Council
Grid reference
SU 34 93
Adjoining parishes in 1851
Balking, Buckland, Charney Bassett, Denchworth, Goosey, Great Faringdon, Hatford, Lyford, Pusey and Shellingford
Genealogical resources
See Berks FHS Books for coverage of this parish in the society’s range of CDs.
See also Berkshire Record Office holdings.
Local history sources
L G Maine A Berkshire village [Stanford in the Vale] its history and antiquities (1866) in Newbury Library and also on GoogleBooks.
V M Howse Stanford in the Vale: a parish record (undated, c1966, reprinted 1985) in Newbury Library
R G Hayden Islands of the Vale Smith, Elder, & Co (1908)
The Stanford Historian is a twice-yearly publication edited and published by Philip Morris, 01367 710 285 (copies filed in Wantage Library)
Stanford in the Vale and District Local History Society – secretary, Philip Morris 01367 710 285
Links
www.stanford-in-the-vale.co.uk community site with extensive local history section
Anglican church and parochial organisation
The living of Stanford in the Vale is a vicarage within the diocese of Oxford (Salisbury until 1836). The ecclesiastical parish formerly included the chapelry of Goosey, which has its own church of All Saints.
The church of St Denys at Stanford dates from late twelfth century, with additions and changes in every succeeding century. Today, it is one of three churches (Stanford in the Vale, Goosey and Hatford) forming one parish.
Other churches
Quakers were present in Stanford in the late seventeenth century.
An independent chapel was recorded in the parish in 1850, and today there is a United Reformed Church on Chapel Road.
Oxfordshire Record Office holds records 1888 – 1969 excluding registers for Stanford Promitive Methodist Chapel.
Schools
Two eighteenth-century endowments were set up to fund the teaching of poor children in Stanford. This provision may have been the forerunner of the National school which was recorded as existing in Stanford, endowed with land, in 1833. The 1851 census noted a National schoolmaster. Today Stanford in the Vale has a primary school.
Pubs
The Horse and Jockey is mentioned in the 1851 census, and still trades today.
Cassey’s Directory of 1868 also recorded a Red Lion Inn.
The Anchor on the High Street, noted in Cassey 1868, is currently closed and may be redeveloped.
According to the community website the Crown Prince Inn (now Campdene House) changed its name to The Prince in deference to anti-German sentiment during the First World War.
Other local history
A vicar of Stanford who died in 1592 left £2 to every man, woman and child in the village.
Several of the roads through Stanford were turnpiked in the eighteenth century, and two toll gates were in operation. Two keepers were enumerated in the 1851 census.
Stanford experienced rioting and general unrest in the 1830 Swing Riots.
1851 census indicates brickmaking, malting, milling, gun-making, harness-making, stonemasonry and quarrying enterprises in the village. Several men were employed on the railway.
20 men of the village lost their lives in the First World War, and nine in the Second.
In 1941 a flying training school was established at Shellingford airfield, partly on Stanford parish land.
The poet Pam Ayres was born in the village in 1947.
