CHURCH.
No documentary evidence has been
found for a parochial chapel at Lower Haddon,
though a large, reportedly cruciform stone barn c.
360 yd. south of Lower Haddon Farm, demolished
c. 1956 when its site was taken into Brize Norton
airfield, featured lancet windows and crosses on
the gables, and in the early 20th century was locally
believed to have been a former chapel. (fn. 24) If so the
absence of 16th-century documentation, in contrast
with Bampton's other chapels, would suggest that
it had been secularized before the Reformation,
perhaps following late medieval depopulation; (fn. 25)
the building was not marked on early 19th-century
maps, however, and may simply have been a field
barn built soon after Bampton's inclosure. (fn. 26)
Footnotes
| 24 |
W. J. Monk, A Ramble in Oxon. [c. 1925], 43, 56: copy
in Bodl. G.A. Oxon. 8° 1041; O.S. Map 6", Oxon. XXXVII
(1884 edn.), s.v. Mill Barn; local inf. |
| 25 |
Above, intro.; cf. above, Chimney, church; below,
Lew, churches. |
| 26 |
O.R.O., Bampton incl. award, plan VI; ibid. MS. d.d.
Par. Bampton a 2 (R); cf. A. Bryant, Oxon. Map (1824);
Blenheim Mun., shelf J4, box 20, release of Haddon estate
1844, neither confirming a cruciform plan. |