Barnard Gate and Freeland
The heathside
cottages which developed into the settlements of
Barnard Gate and Freeland were mostly postmedieval, though there were a few earlier farmsteads near Freeland. In 1738 the vicar mentioned 'near twenty' houses on the heath, which
presumably included both settlements. (fn. 76) In
1763 Eynsham manor included several cottages
'taken from the heath'; one was expressly stated
to be held on a lease from Mr. Jordan, whose
family ceased to hold the manor in the early 18th
century. (fn. 77) Probably the Jordans, who from the
mid 17th century sold off much manorial
property, also sanctioned small encroachments
on the heath, but there had been a few houses at
both Barnard Gate and Freeland in 1650 before
the Jordans became lords.
Barnard Lane and Barnett Close were mentioned from the 16th century and Barnard Gate
in the early 18th. (fn. 78) Similar gates on the periphery of the heath were Cuckoo and Freeland
gates. (fn. 79) Barnard may be a corruption of barnyard, and the lane may have led to the abbot's
grange near Bowles Farm. (fn. 80) By 1650 there were
at least two houses at Barnard Gate, one of them
on the site of the later Barnard Gate Farm. (fn. 81) By
the mid 18th century and at inclosure in 1802 (fn. 82)
there were a few houses alongside the Chil brook
and on the site of the Britannia inn; the inn, first
recorded by name in 1836, was probably one of
several houses licensed at Barnard Gate during
the later 18th century as turnpike trade developed. (fn. 83) After inclosure some outlying farmhouses were established near Barnard Gate, and
in the early 20th century a corrugated iron
Methodist chapel was built there. (fn. 84)
Freeland developed from a medieval freehold,
probably worked from the site of the present
Elm Farm, near the wood called the Frith (later
Thrift coppice); several residents of the Frith
were mentioned when a man was killed there in
1241. (fn. 85) Other early heathside farmsteads near
Freeland, at Cook's Corner, Little Blenheim,
and Heath Farm, lay just outside Eynsham's
boundary, (fn. 86) but they probably worked the various early encroachments on Eynsham heath
known as the Breaches on the eastern edge of the
parish.
By the 16th century the ancient freehold was
called Frithlands or Freelands, and Freeland
was named as an address by the late 17th
century. (fn. 87) In 1650, besides the house at Elm
Farm, there were at least two leasehold cottages
at Freeland, one of them at the south-west
corner of the later Blenheim Lane. (fn. 88) In 1762
there were fewer than a dozen cottages at Freeland, mostly south and east of the perimeter lane
round the heath, the present main road from
Eynsham through Freeland; one group lay close
to the Green, another in and near Blenheim
Lane. (fn. 89) Several cottages were owned by the
Buckingham and Merry families, (fn. 90) Pigeon
House Lane was formerly Merry Lane. (fn. 91) At
inclosure most of the land west of the heath road
was awarded to W. E. Taunton, becoming the
park of Freeland Lodge (later Freeland House),
built in 1807, (fn. 92) but a few new cottages were
inserted between the park and the road. Employment provided by the Taunton and Eynsham Hall estates and by several small
brickworks (fn. 93) stimulated the growth of the hamlet, and by 1869, when Freeland became an
ecclesiastical district, there were 52 houses with
a population of 241. (fn. 94)
Until the 1870s the buildings of Freeland
were mostly small cottages, apart from Freeland
Lodge, Elm Farm, and Upper Farm, an early
19th-century building on the main road south of
Broad Marsh Lane, built to work the outlying
parts of the Taunton estate. (fn. 95) In the absence of a
church the Methodist chapel of 1817 was central
to the hamlet's life in the early 19th century.
Several unidentified public houses were recorded in Freeland in the later 18th century. (fn. 96)
The Royal Oak, mentioned in 1836 but not
thereafter, was probably in one of the cottages
on the east side of the main road, north of
Blenheim Lane. (fn. 97) The New Inn, Freeland's
only licensed house for most of the 19th century,
is dated 1842 and bears the initials of William
Merry, who sold it to Morrell's brewery in
1846. (fn. 98) In 1974 the restored inn was renamed
the Oxfordshire Yeoman. (fn. 99) Roslyn, a house
dated 1738, once standing alone on the North
Leigh road close to the former boundary of
Eynsham parish, was the 'Wrostling House' in
the 19th century, reputedly an inn and a meeting
place of pugilists. (fn. 1) The North Leigh road, formerly Hicks Lane, (fn. 2) is now Wroslyn Road.
South of the hamlet, in the angle of the Freeland
road and that leading towards Eynsham Hall,
was a pest house, recorded as Lower Farm and
Pest House Farm from the mid 19th century and
demolished in the early 20th. (fn. 3)
The Taunton family transformed the village
by building the church and associated parsonage
in 1869 and the school and schoolhouse in 1871.
The new buildings, all by J. L. Pearson, provided a unified centre to an otherwise scattered
hamlet. St. Mary's House was built in 1875-6,
presumably for Sarah Percival Taunton (d.
1896) after the family sold Freeland House. (fn. 4) In
the earlier 20th century it served variously as a
home for invalid ladies and as a retreat, (fn. 5) and in
1950 it became an enclosed convent for the
Community of St. Clare (Anglican). (fn. 6) The house
is of stone, with irregular, half-hipped roofs and
sash windows; a Gothic chapel was added in
1960. (fn. 7) The Taunton connexion with Freeland
was kept up long into the 20th century by the
Misses Taunton who lived at Taunton House,
built in the 1890s at the south-east corner of the
park. (fn. 8)
Freeland's population fell from 232 to 160
during the 1880s, (fn. 9) presumably because of the
agricultural depression, and in 1932, when Freeland was transferred to Hanborough parish, the
population was only 214. In 1951 the newly
formed civil parish of Freeland contained 140
houses and a population of 530; (fn. 10) the increase
was partly because of the inclusion of houses in
the north and east which before 1932 belonged
to Hanborough, partly because of extensive
post-war building of detached houses and bungalows north of the old centre. Houses lined
Wroslyn Road on the west side as far as Parklands, and on the east there was ribbon development south of Roslyn. (fn. 11) The population rose to
654 in 1961, 961 in 1971, and 1,374 in 1981,
when there were 435 households. (fn. 12) Most new
houses were north of the old centre, but Pigeon
House Lane and Blenheim Lane were also built
up. Until 1935, when mains water became available, supply was from wells or from a pump near
Freeland House gate supplied from the Eynsham Hall lake. Mains electricity was connected
in 1935. The first village hall, an army hut north
of the old school, was opened c. 1920; the
present hall dates from the 1960s and the adjacent playing fields were opened in 1958. (fn. 13) A
large new school was opened on Wroslyn Road
in 1964 and an industrial estate on Broad Marsh
Lane in the 1970s.