Shrivenham

Shrivenham
St Andrew's parish church
Shrivenham  Shrivenham shown within Oxfordshire
Population	2,352 (2001 census)
OS grid reference	SU2388
District	Vale of White Horse
Shire county	Oxfordshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Swindon
Postcode district	SN6
Dialling code	01793
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Oxfordshire
Ambulance	Great Western
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Wantage
Website	Shrivenham Oxfordshire England
List of places: UK • England • Oxfordshire

Shrivenham is a large village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England, close to the boundary with Wiltshire. It is in the Vale of White Horse, between Swindon and Faringdon. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.

Character

Prince of Wales public house

Shrivenham features many thatched cottages, stone walls, an ancient pump and a Norman parish church. It has two traditional and historic public houses, the Barrington Arms and the Prince of Wales. Each year the village holds the Shrivenham Village Fete, which has been an annual event for 30 years.

G. I. American University

At the end of World War II in Europe, the U.S. Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilized American service men and women in Shrivenham. This, and two campuses in Europe, was set up to provide a transition between army life and subsequent attendance at a university in the USA, and therefore students attended for just one term (see G. I. American Universities)

U.K. Military Colleges

Shrivenham has been the site of UK military colleges since 1946 and the establishment of the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS) on the Beckett estate. This college is now called the Defence College of Management and Technology, which is part of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.

The Defence Academy of the United Kingdom provides higher education for personnel in the British Armed Forces, Civil Service, other government departments and service personnel from other nations. The Defence Academy's current Director General is Peter Watkins who took up his post on 6 June 2011. The Defence Academy is headquartered at Shrivenham and delivers education and training in a number of sites. The majority of training is postgraduate with many courses being accredited for the award of civilian qualifications. Cranfield University has a strong link with the Defence Academy, being the academic provider at the aforementioned college.

The Conflict Studies Research Centre (CSRC) is just over the parish boundary in Watchfield.

Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) is a British military academic establishment providing training and education to experienced officers of the Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, Ministry of Defence Civil Service, and serving officers of other states.

JSCSC combined the single service provision of the British Armed Forces: Royal Naval College, Greenwich, Staff College, Camberley, RAF Staff College, Bracknell and the Joint Service Defence College, Greenwich. Initially formed at Bracknell in 1997, the college moved to a purpose-built facility in the grounds of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom and is co-located with the Defence College of Management and Technology, Shrivenham.

The Defence College of Management and Technology (DA-CMT) is a UK postgraduate school, research institution and training provider formed in 2009 from five departments of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, and as such part of the British Armed Forces. Since 1984 Cranfield University has been the main academic provider of the College. A November 2005 contract extends the Cranfield relationship with DA-CMT to at least 2027.

The Conflict Studies Research Centre (CSRC) was part of the UK Defence Academy. It specialised in potential causes of conflict in a wide area ranging from the Baltic to Central Asia. This geographical focus was inherited from the Centre's original incarnation as the Soviet Studies Research Centre (SSRC) in 1972, at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, examining the Soviet military threat. Re-named in the 1990s, the Centre later examined wider issues including foreign policy, energy security and demographic change. CSRC hosted a small number of deep country specialists, providing in-house expertise on their subject countries to government and academic customers in the UK and beyond, as well as publishing research in their own right. In 2006, CSRC was absorbed into the Advanced Research and Assessment Group (ARAG), another component of the UK Defence Academy, which was subsequently disbanded. In May 2010, former research staff of CSRC, laid off at its closure, re-formed the organisation independently of the Ministry of Defence.

Beckett estate

Main article: Beckett Hall

The main country estate in Shrivenham is the Beckett Estate. The estate and the Barrington family who lived there were the inspirations for the naming of Becket, Massachusetts and Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was also the home of Henry Marten, the regicide.

Churches

Aerial view of Shrivenham showing St Andrew's parish church

The Church of England parish church of Saint Andrew was rebuilt in 1638 around the central bell tower that dates from about 1400.

Shrivenham has a Methodist Church.

History

There has been a human settlement at Shrivenham from at least 400 BC. The remains of a Roman villa have been uncovered nearby.

Shrivenham is part of the Shrivenham Hundred which included Ashbury, Buscot, Coleshill, Compton Beauchamp, Eaton Hastings, Longcot, Shrivenham, and Uffington. After the 19th century Hundreds effectively ceased to function, although they have not been abolished.^{[citation needed]}

The Wilts & Berks Canal from Semington on the Kennet and Avon Canal to Abingdon on the River Thames was built between 1796 and 1810. In 1805 it reached Shrivenham where a wharf was built. Coal delivered via Semington to Shrivenham peaked at 601 tons in 1840, when the Great Western Railway was built through the area and opened Shrivenham railway station. Coal deliveries by canal fluctuated through the 1840s and then collapsed from 272 tons in 1850 to only 28 tons in 1852 and none for most years thereafter, except for 27 tons in 1858 and 24 tons in 1864.

Other canal freight also declined, and between 1893 and 1896 just 48 tons were shipped between Shrivenham and Wantage. In 1894–95 Ainsworth, a local canal carrier, handled 23 tons of freight at Shrivenham. By then the canal was increasingly in disrepair, in 1901 the collapse of the Stanley Aqueduct effectively ended the little remaining traffic and in 1914 an Act of Parliament formalised the abandonment of the canal.

Shrivenham railway station continued to serve the parish until British Railways closed it in 1964.

Literature

In Tom Brown's Schooldays, the main character Tom Brown mentions Shrivenham railway station (now closed):

"Most of you have probably travelled down the Great Western Railway as far as Swindon. Those of you who did so with their eyes open have been aware, soon after leaving the Didcot station, of a fine range of chalk hills running parallel with the railway on the left-hand side as you go down, and distant some two or three miles, more or less, from the line. The highest point in the range is the White Horse Hill, which you come in front of just before you stop at the Shrivenham station. If you love English scenery, and have a few hours to spare, you can't do better, the next time you pass, than stop at the Farringdon Road or Shrivenham station, and make your way to that highest point."

Elm Tree House, built of the local stone c1700, with later Tuscan porch

Notable people

• John Shute Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington - English statesman and 1st Viscount Barrington, resident of Beckett, Shrivenham
• Samuel Barrington - British Admiral and fourth son of John Shute Barrington
• Shute Barrington, Bishop of Llandaff, of Salisbury and of Durham
• William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington - British politician and eldest son of John Shute Barrington
• Benjamin Disraeli - Prime Minister and literary figure, frequent visitor to Shrivenham
• Emily Powell - Author of World Best Seller 'So Beautiful, So Perfect, Go Slow'
• Henry Marten - regicide, English politician and resident of Beckett, Shrivenham

Sport and leisure

• The local football team is Shrivenham F.C.
• The Vale of White Horse Gliding Centre flies from Sandhill Farm, just north of the village.

Twin town

• Mortrée, a commune with some 1,000 inhabitants in Lower Normandy, France, has been twinned with Shrivenham since 1988.

Sources and further reading

• Boobyer, David (2005). Shrivenham: Portraits of a Typical English Village. 
• Child, Mark (2007). Guide to St Andrew's Church Shrivenham In The Diocese of Oxford. Thanet: The Church Publishers. 
• Dalby, L.J. (2000) [1971]. The Wilts and Berks Canal (3rd ed.). Usk: Oakwood Press. pp. 23, 119, 123, 124. ISBN 0-85361-562-4. 
• Dils, Joan; Schwartz, Deidre (2004). Tudor and Stuart Shrivenham. self-published by the authors. 
• Hill, Rev. Edward Frank (1929). A Record of the Parish of Shrivenham, Berkshire. Faringdon: C. Luker. 
• Laird, Philip (2007). Shrivenham: A Local Place for Local People. 
• Page, W.H.; Ditchfield, P.H., eds. (1924). A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume 4. Victoria County History. pp. 531–543. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 217–218. 

External links

• Vision of Shrivenham through Time
• Historic Shrivenham photos at BBC Wiltshire
• History of Shrivenham Primary School
• The Shrivenham and Ashbury Benefice
• Shrivenham Park Golf Club
• US military history at Shrivenham
• UK Defence Academy
• UK Joint Command and Staff College
• Defence College of Management and Technology
• Cranfield University at Shrivenham