Ewelme

This article is about the village in Oxfordshire. For the River Ewelme in Gloucestershire, see River Cam, Gloucestershire.

Ewelme
Ewelme  Ewelme shown within Oxfordshire
Population	1,103 (2001 census)
OS grid reference	SU6491
Civil parish	Ewelme
District	South Oxfordshire
Shire county	Oxfordshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Postcode district	OX10
Dialling code	01491
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Oxfordshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Henley
Website	Ewelme community website
List of places: UK • England • Oxfordshire

Ewelme is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) northeast of the market town of Wallingford.

To the east of the village is Cow Common and to the west, Benson Airfield, the north-eastern corner of which is within the parish boundary.

The solid geology is chalk overlying gault clay. The drift geology includes some gravel.

Toponym

The toponym is derived from Ae-whylme, Old English for "waters whelming". It refers to the very fine spring just north of the village, which forms the King's Pool that feeds the rapidly-flowing Ewelme Brook. The brook flows past Fifield Manor and then through nearby Benson before joining the River Thames. It formed the basis of Ewelme's watercress beds, which provided much local employment until well into the 20th Century.

Almshouses and school

Ewelme almshouses

William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk and his wife Alice de la Pole established the school and cloistered almshouses from their profits from the East Anglian wool trade in 1437. Alice was the daughter of Thomas Chaucer, Speaker of the House of Commons and granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. As lords of the manor, she and her father had both lived at Ewelme Palace which once stood in the village. The school (and the adjoining church) featured prominently in the children's work of fiction The Writing on the Hearth by Carnegie Medal-winning author Cynthia Harnett. The action in the book is set around the time the school was built. Ewelme School is said to be the oldest school building in the UK still in use as a local authority school.

The almshouses are officially called "The Two Chaplains and Thirteen Poor Men of Ewelme in the County of Oxford". The thirteen almsmen have now been reduced to eight, but the building is still run as a charity by the Ewelme Trust.

Under James I the original purpose of the position of Master of Ewelme Hospital was diverted to support the Oxford Regius Professor of Physic, with the change being made in 1617, confirmed by the 1628 attachment of the stipend to the chair. At the same time the rectorship of Ewelme was made to support the Oxford Regius Professor of Divinity, who then served as Rector of the parish church.

Parish church

Tomb of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk

Thomas Chaucer and Alice de la Pole are buried in the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary adjoining the almshouses: Thomas with a memorial brass on a tomb chest and Alice beneath a church monument, complete with her cadaver inside. Her effigy was examined by Queen Victoria's commissioners in order to discover how a lady should wear the Order of the Garter. Amongst her husbands were the 4th Earl of Salisbury and the 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of England. Her six-year-old step-great-granddaughter, the 15th Countess of Warwick, also died at Ewelme, but was buried at Reading Abbey. Jerome K. Jerome, author of Three Men In A Boat and his wife Ettie are buried in St. Mary's churchyard.

Amenities

Ewelme has a public house, the Shepherd's Hut, controlled by Greene King Brewery. The village store is run by volunteers on a not-for-profit basis.

Ewelme Cricket Club was founded in 1933.

Since 2006 Ewelme has hosted the annual Chiltern Chase, a charity run of two multi-terrain (cross-country) courses: one of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) and the other of 10 kilometres (6.2 mi). Both races start and finish on Cow Common. Normally two charities benefit equally from the proceeds of the event.

Literature

Ewelme is the principal setting for Cynthia Harnett's historical novel The Writing On The Hearth (1971). Set in the 1440s and featuring real life characters such as Alice Chaucer, the novel is for readers eleven years and above.

Sources

• Goodall, John A.A. (2001). God's House at Ewelme. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. not cited. ISBN 0754600475. 
• Legh, John (1999). The Story of Ewelme Watercress. The Friends of Ewelme Watercress Beds. ISBN 0953763706. 
• Page, William, ed (1907). A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 2. Victoria County History. Archibald Constable & Co. pp. 156. 
• Rowley, Trevor (1978). Villages in the Landscape. Archaeology in the Field Series. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. p. 118. ISBN 0 460 04166 5. 
• Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 595–600. ISBN 0 14 071045 0. 

External links

• Prister-Crutwell, M., Ewelme - A romantic village, its past and present, its people and its history Accessed 21 December 2006
• Ewelme.net
• Ewelme Watercress Beds and Local Nature Reserve