It is thought that the first reliable map of the parish of Warborough was made in 1606.
Like many early European maps, it was drawn with East at the top, so a simplified version with the conventional North orientated layout is easier to visualise:-
Warborough Parish c.1606
Shillingford and Warborough were originally part of Bensington (Benson) Royal Manor but the Estate in Shillingford was given to Godstow Nunnery in Oxford by rival claimants to the throne Stephen and Matilda, early in the 12th Century.
Later, additional land was given by Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, in about 1150.
Dorchester Abbey also held lands in Warborough given by Edmund of Cornwall, nephew of King John.
Both Warborough and Shillingford were considered as separate manors at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries during the 1530’s when taken into royal hands. Shillingford Manor was 324 acres and Warborough was 190 acres.
The manors were mortgaged to a consortium of haberdashers, led by Thomas Blanke in 1544 by Letters Patent. A haberdasher is an old term for a “seller of small things” such as items used in the making of men’s clothing like buttons and threads.
The mortgage was unredeemed and Blanke sold the manors to Sir Thomas White in 1566 for £400.
St John’s College
St John’s College, or to give it its full name, St John the Baptist’s College, Oxford, had been founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas White, lately Lord Mayor of London.
Sir Thomas White
Today, St John’s is the wealthiest college in Oxford, with assets worth over £790 million, largely due to nineteenth-century suburban development of land in the city of Oxford, of which it is the ground landlord.
The college occupies a site on St Giles and has a student body of some 390 undergraduates and 250 postgraduates. There are over 100 academic staff, and a like number of other staff.
As is often the case in the 16th Century there were problems with the title to the manors and the College had to pay £700 to acquire 12 ½ yardlands in Bury Fields (now the area south of The Green South as far as Benson roundabout and incorporating Plough Field. See map above). A yardland was 30 acres.
This purchase strengthened their ownership of the manor. The Bishop of Winchester said “your former title and assurance of a Manor left by your Founder, very litigious, is much strengthened by this later purchase to the great good and quiet of your College”
In 1606 the college’s title to certain freehold land in Warborough was said to be unknown but there were no further legal actions, and the college held courts baron for Warborough and Shillingford until the mid-19th century.
A large part of the parish remained, at least nominally, Crown property in 1606, when a survey of Benson manor listed 51 holdings wholly or partly in Warborough parish, amounting to 1,048 acres and including freeholdings of 305 acres. The Crown also retained Shillingford ferry near the site of the present-day bridge and its fishery. The boundaries of Benson manor could not be fully determined because its lands were so intermixed with other estates, however most tenants paid the bulk of their rents to St John’s. When the Crown sold Benson manor in 1628 only a limited amount of land in Warborough seems to have been included, and in 1844 the Stapletons (as lords of Benson) owned only 165 acres there, the bulk of it comprising Court Farm.
In 1836 the land lay mainly in open-field strips spread across the parish, with some concentration in Home, Middle and Lower Bury fields in the south, while its two chief properties were Upper Farm and Shillingford Farm. Enclosure took place 1848-53 to consolidate land into larger parcels.
In 1844 the estate totalled 566 acres expanded by the purchase of 30 acres of common land and several smallholdings in the early 1850s, and of White’s Farm (c.50 acres) near Warborough Green in 1872.
Before 1910 they added Manor farm (251 acres of which 233 were within the parish). This was sold to St John’s in 1937. By 1914 its estate exceeded 820 acres.
A later purchase by the College was of a terrace of four whitewashed modernist houses on Thame Road south-west of the church, built as farm labourers’ accommodation in 1952, to designs by Lionel Brett (later Lord Esher).
Finally, St John’s sold most of its Warborough estate piecemeal in the 1970s–80s. Upper Farm and other land (524 acres) was sold to J.P.D. Heyward in the early 1970s and in 1987 to Midland Pig Producers Ltd.
Shillingford Farm (912 acres, including over 700 in Warborough) was sold to Amey Roadstone Construction, which sold it to the tenant B.M. Cook in 1978, retaining gravel rights for sixty years. The Cooks added 120 acres in Berrick Salome in 1982.
St John’s sold the lordship of Warborough manor to C.S. Windebank of Manor Farm for £450 in 1972 but still retain nominal lordship of Shillingford manor.
St John’s College carried out two “stock takes” of their lands in 1949 & 1957 which they called Progresses. These are reproduced below and give a snapshot of the village in these two years.
ST. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE
THE PROGRESS, WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY, 1949
Timetable
The Progress will leave the College in a motor coach at 9.30am and should be back at the College by 6.45pm. It will visit the block of College property at Warborough, Overy and Shillingford, which lies east of Dorchester and in the angle formed by the junction of the R. Thame with the Thames.
Notes on the early history of this area of College property prepared by the President and Mr Colvin, are enclosed and include a list of the smaller properties. These will be visited during the Progress, as far as time permits.
In the morning the College will inspect the Warborough properties, and after calling to toast the landlord of the College’s inn at Benson, “The Three Horse Shoes”, now being improved by Usher’s Brewery as a condition of a new lease, will return to Dorchester at about 12.15pm when Mr Lampe will conduct the Progress over Dorchester Abbey. Luncheon at “The George” will be at 1pm. This inn is not the property of the College.
Between 2.15 & 3PM The Progress will inspect the Overy property, consisting of the farm buildings, the Manor and the Mill.
At 3pm Mr Warburton will take the Progress over his farm, and at 5pm he and Mrs Warburton will expect the Progress to tea to meet the other tenants and their wives.
The Progress will leave the College in a motor coach at 9.30am and should be back at the College by 6.45pm. It will visit the block of College property at Warborough, Overy and Shillingford, which lies east of Dorchester and in the angle formed by the junction of the R.Thame with the Thames.
Notes on the early history of this area of College property prepared by the President and Mr Colvin, are enclosed and include a list of the smaller properties. These will be visited during the Progress, as far as time permits.
In the morning the College will inspect the Warborough properties, and after calling to toast the landlord of the College’s inn at Benson, “The Three Horse Shoes”, now being improved by Usher’s Brewery as a condition of a new lease, will return to Dorchester at about 12.15pm when Mr Lampe will conduct the Progress over Dorchester Abbey. Luncheon at “The George” will be at 1pm. This inn is not the property of the College.
Between 2.15 & 3PM The Progress will inspect the Overy property, consisting of the farm buildings, the Manor and the Mill.
At 3pm Mr Warburton will take the Progress over his farm, and at 5pm he and Mrs Warburton will expect the Progress to tea to meet the other tenants and their wives.
| Tenant | Farm | Type | Acreage | Rent per acre S. d. | No on 1-inch map |
| L.H.Hawkins | Upper F | Extensive farming of corn and fat stock | 409 | 22. 6. | 7 |
| Messrs Belcher & Tuckwell | Violet’s F | Intensive dairying & market-gardening | 80 | 26. 2. | 8 |
| E.L. Townsend | Overy F | Dairying, Pigs &poultry in the old very much mixed style | 143 | 29. 3. | 9 |
| J.R.Warburton | Shillingford | Mechanised for corn production | 792 | 26. 11 | 10 |
Upper Farm and Violet’s Farm interlock inconveniently. Now that the third farmer on “the Clays” has been bought out by Mr Belcher, it might be possible to offset an exchange between the farms, whereby all fields in “the Clays” would become part of Upper Farm, and Violet’s Farm could be compensated by extending its area near the Thame. A field of 8 acres farmed by Mr Belcher and owned by a Mr Greenaway adjoins the College’s land, and this the College might well purchase if opportunity offers. Several other small areas of other people’s property adjoin Upper Farm, which could conveniently form part of it. Hitherto the values as eased by the owners have exceeded what would be prudent for the College to pay.
The four farms illustrate distinct and important type of English farming, and some of the large problems with which agriculture is faced.
UPPER FARM of 400 acres is reminiscent of the extensive, slow-moving farming of earlier times. Its three horses are fighting a rear-guard action against the single tractor, reinforced by mercenaries hired locally. Store cattle of high quality, despite their price, are still purchased for fattening. And the land is kept clean by a generous use of the expensive bare fallow.
The little “VIOLET’S FARM” of 80 acres is of exactly opposite type. Worked with another 40 acres, there is intensive production of market-garden crops and milk, giving employment to a dozen hands. It is more an agricultural business rather than a farm.
OVERY FARM of 140 acres, appears at first sight to be a smallholding, and the unceasing industry of Mr Townsend – constantly to be found on his bicycle with a pail on the way to feed something – confirm this wrong impression. In fact these 140 acres are only part of a 400 acre farm, managed jointly by Mr Townsend and his son. Starting as butchers, they have been converted into farmers partly by inclination and partly by the official discouragement of producer-retailer butchers. They have realised the importance of modern machinery, and that a small farm cannot afford their cost. And so they have built up a farm of adequate size, and are helping their finances by the quick returns from milk, pigs and poultry.
Lastly, comes SHILLINGFORD FARM of 800 acres. In its mechanized structure is only one flaw – a lonely horse serving as a drudge for the 6 tractors (I hope that my successor, well known as a judge of horses, will not allow such menial work, appropriate to a baby Ford or Austin, to be allotted on the College Farm to a horse. If this noble animal is to reappear on the College inventory, equine dignity would be better served by reviving “the Riding Bursar”). Mr Warburton’s farm exemplifies the modern English attempt at economical corn-production. Being an engineer, Mr Warburton is able constantly to experiment with often quite small mechanical changes, which, in total, decide between profit and loss, and his farm is large enough to carry its own mechanic and repair shop. His chief problem is the agricultural one of restoring economically to the land the substance extracted by his intensive cropping. (The College Farm of 470 acres is too small to carry a mechanic. Especially until it is extended, the College can gain much from Mr Warburton’s advice upon equipment. Conversely, Mr Montague Jones and Tom Clarke represent a fund of agricultural knowledge and skill, on which Mr Warburton should be able to draw when tackling his problems of soil fertility. Close touch between the two farms should be of constant value to both, and both will depend on Professor Blackman for advice on the control of weeds).
The Drought
The dry season has enabled fine crops of hay to be harvested in perfect condition, and it does not appear to have injured the winter-sown wheat and beans. Spring-grown corn crops and early potatoes, however, have suffered seriously, especially on the lighter soils, and some of the stunted barleys are almost hidden by wild oat, which appears to be suited to all seasonal variations.
The four farms together impress the complexity of rural organisation. The physical conditions of the farms are widely different, but far more so are the characters and capacities of the four farmers. Multiply both by the number of farms and farmers in the country and the complexity of the product will be leaving farmers and landowners free to fit themselves to other the result may be a strange mosaic. But it works, and its atmosphere of freedom stimulates both happiness and progress. What the State can do is to secure good communications, water and electricity supplies, and other services, and to arrange that imported foods are complements and competitors of efficiently home-grown supplies. It can set standards of quality and organiser precautions against diseases. Within such helpful boundaries the more that agriculturists are left free to manage their own affairs the better for the country. Among themselves there is still scope for considerable voluntary cooperation in matters of selling and buying.
Physical conditions of the area
Soil In general the higher ground at Warborough is heavy, and good for corn, beans, and beef, while the lower ground of Shillingford is light and food for barley. That is will also grow food wheat if management be good and the season favourable, will be seen from the excellent crop standing at the S.E. of Mr Warburton’s farm. The Thames meadows suffer much from flooding.
Water Supplies The case is one of water everywhere but not enough to drink. Two rivers, the Thame and Thames, form the western and southern boundaries of the area, and reasonable enterprise among the public authorities would long ago have provided a modern water supply for the three villages and our adjacent farms and for Dorchester. In this basic factor of town-and-country planning, where State action alone can be effective, the central and local authorities unfortunately are persistently asleep. And so the College and its tenants have had independently to do their best to drain their waterlogged lands and to water their buildings. The important watering of fields still has to be arranged.
The land-drainage effect by the College has been very successful. Formerly, much of the heavy land of Upper Farm was waterlogged in winter, but tile-drainage, mole-draining, and considerable ditching have made great improvements. On Mr Warburton’s Farm, a large area, which, prior to its purchase by the College in 1935 was under water in wet winters, was completely restored by the excavation of the main dyke in 1937 with Messrs Allen’s mechanical ditching machine.
Farm Roads everywhere present a constant problem, and the Progress will have first-hand experience of examples. At Warborough the two College tenants use the same roads, and they have not found a cooperative method for the necessary maintenance. At Shillingford there is a great length of necessary internal roadway, and the cost of maintenance adequate for modern machinery and vehicles is heavy.
Captain J.C. Allen of Messrs John Allen and Sons, is a helpful consultant, whom I can recommend to Mr Garrard, if he needs advice of this kind.
During the war the American engineers exercised themselves at Warborough, the College providing the materials. Two of the farm roads were graded and not very lasting attempts made to establish porous tracks of the kind so successfully made at the College Farm. On one occasion, when the engineers were attempting to repair a culvert over a stream, the College had to get the N.F.S. to bring out a trailer pump from Oxford in order to assist the operation.
A more lasting monument of the engineers is “America Bridge”, which they built to connect a previously derelict island of 12 acres in the Thame with its left bank. The Progress will see the bridge.
Social Services of the College
Sites for new cottages have been provided at minimum cost to the Local Authority, and land is let to both the Parish Council and the County Council for allotments and gardens. Most of the recent concessions have come out of Mr Warburton’s farm, and the College has now intimated to the authorities that his generous cooperation in such matters should not be further taxed.
Sites for Contractors In 1947, with the consent of Mr Belcher, the College sold a quarter-acre of Violet’s Farm to Mr Buswell, a young contractor, in order to help him get established. This action has reacted beneficially on the estate, as Mr Buswell is useful to both Mr Hawkins and Mr Warburton for undertaking contract cultivations in time of pressure. Were this help not available, Mr Hawkins could not manage Upper Farm with only three horses and one tractor. The case exemplifies a form of much-needed social service, which the College from time to time may be able to render. Small contractors have largely disappeared from the villages, the town-contractors are reluctant to undertake country work. As a result, it is both difficult and costly for residents in the country to get repairs and improvements affected. To provide and advertise suitable accommodation for a contractor at Fyfield might well prove a good investment for the College and a great benefit for the inhabitants. The Hewett brothers at Long Wittenham are an example of how useful such a small contractor can be.
Dangerous Corners Several very dangerous bends in the main road between Dorchester and Benson have been removed through the College’s permission for the setting back of fences by the Road Authority. It has been the recent custom of the College, which I hope will be continued, to stimulate all improvements of this kind by making no charge for the small areas conceded, and by arranging that an exchange of letters with a sketch shall suffice as a record. The road authority has to arrange times convenient to the tenant, and to erect the new fence.
The College and Local Authorities It has been a tradition among English landowners to contribute liberally to public improvements, and it is important to continue this policy despite the attacks by Parliament on private property. The Surveyors of County and Rural District Councils and the Engineers of the Thames Conservancy have difficult tasks to perform, and it is of great value to them to know that directly they get on to St John’s land they are certain of help. The cost of the College is small, and, when it is the College’s turn to ask for help, it usually comes.
THE PROGRESS
TUESDAY, JULY 2nd 1957
GENERAL DIRECTIONS
The Progress last visited Warborough on 6th July 1949, during a Summer of severe drought similar to that through which we are passing at the present time.
Then the Progress went by bus, but as this is no longer popular the party will travel in individual cars, although it means that certain property which was inspected in 1949 must on this occasion be omitted.
Leave Oxford by the Cowley Road and proceed towards Warborough via Chislehampton and Stadhampton (B.480) and then (by B.4013) through Newington to UPPER FARM (see separate Note A.)
The Progress will walk over the eastern part of the farm, but a tractor and trailer will be available on the main road for those who wish to conclude their inspection in less energetic fashion.
VIOLET’S FARM and Thame Road Cottage (separate Notes B. and C.) Adjoin Upper Farm and it will be necessary only to use the cars at the conclusion of the Warborough inspection.
Travelling south through Warborough village the Terraced Cottages designed in 1952 by Lionel Brett can be seen on the right, while on the left is the Site for the New School, at last agreed by all parties.
Before joining the Oxford-Henley Road there may be seen on the left-hand side a Memorial Cairn (constructed of rock from the many competing countries) on which reposes “The Golden Plough” donated by Messrs. Esso Ltd. In memory of the World Ploughing Match and in the interests of “World Peace” (and, one can presume, of the Directors).
Turn right onto the Oxford Road (A.423) and go towards Dorchester, turning right to OVERY just short of the bridge over the Thame. The MANOR (separate Note D.) is on the left.
Professor and Mrs Kenneth Robinson (the Tenants) have kindly invited the Progress to Sherry on arrival, but will then disappear so that, should history repeat itself, Fellows will be able to criticise the Bursar as adversely as they may wish, without that restraint which they might feel imposed upon them by the presence of a stranger.
Overy Mill and the River Meadows (separate Note E.) are a satisfactory objective for a postprandial stroll, before meeting E.L.Townsend at OVERY FARM (Separate Note F.).
Half-an-hour later return by car along the Henley Road to Shillingford Farm (Separate Note G. and PLAN) where the tenant, J.R. Warburton, will have his trailer ready to drag the party round his farm.
Tea is to be in the garden of Shillingford Farmhouse where the Progress will expect to meet the other tenants and their wives.
In the house there will be displayed a collection of Photographs taken during the last Progress and Fellows (some more than others) will be amused to see that it is not only buildings that are affected by the passing of time.
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Enclosure B
WARBOROUGH, SHILLINGFORD & OVERY 1949 Progress
Sundry small Properties
WARBOROUGH
| The Property | Tenant | Rent £. S. d. | Notes |
| “Thame Road” Cottage | T. Brooks | 9. 6. 4. | A nice old cottage which should be added to one of the farms when the present old tenant dies |
| Flower Cottages | H.J. Absolom Vaughan (Warburton) | 26. 18. 0. – – | Mr Absolom is a retired gardener, whose garden is a horticultural spectacle throughout the summer. His neighbour tries to keep pace |
| Bombed Cottage | Bullingdon R.D.C. Austin (Warburton) | 5. 4. 0. – – | 8 persons, being 2 generations are crowded in this house until the son and his family get a new Council house. This cottage can then be improved |
| Small garden Allotments “ Field (Pt. 155) Oxford C.C. | R,E, Wade Warborough F.C. “ “ “ Miss Lee Allotments | 5. 0. 18.16. 3. 6. 3. 9. 9. 0. 0. 4. 3. 0. | Accommodation Land |
SHILLINGFORD
| Pear Tree Cottage | F. Shrubb, and Mrs Marshall | 1. 6. 0. | Nominal rent for life |
| The Nook | Mrs Boorne | 27. 0. 0. | |
| Post Office | A Turner | 32. 0. 0. | |
| “New Inn” garden} ground} | Usher’s Brewery “ “ | 12. 0. 0. 1. 0. 0. | |
| 3 Cottages | Warburton | – – | |
| Selside | Mrs L. Manners | 29.13. 0. | A good house which should be improved when present old tenant departs. |
| Main Road Cottage | Mrs Major | 21. 12. 6. |
BENSON ROAD
| Pair of Cottages | A. F. Newman A.W. Price | 14. 14. 0. 14.14. 0. | |
| Land intersected by By-Pass | Jenkins | 2. 0. 0. |
BENSON
| “Three Horse Shoe” Inn | Usher’s Brewery | 20. 0. 0. | New being improved by Brewery. New lease to follow at increased rent |
OVERY
| The Manor | Sir Henry Penson | 200. 0. 0. | Lease expires Midsummer. House under minor repairs |
| Mill Cottages | J. Stacey Sir Henry Penson | 9. 6. 0. – – – | Part of Manor |
| Pair of Cottages | Miss L. Jones E. L. Townsend | 11. 10. 0. – – – | Part of Farm |
| 3 Overy Meadows | P.J. Green | 6. 0. 0. | Temporary tenancy. Normally part of the Manor |
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Researched and compiled by Ray Thackrah.
With many thanks to Michael Riordan, Archivist, St John’s College for much of the information regarding the early years of the college and their holdings and permission to use the photos.