East Hanney

Coordinates: 51°37′59″N 1°24′18″W / 51.633°N 1.405°W / 51.633; -1.405

East Hanney is a village and civil parish on Letcombe Brook about 3 miles (5 km) north of Wantage. Historically East and West Hanney were formerly a single ecclesiastical parish of Hanney. East Hanney was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire.

Churches

East Hanney had a chapel by 1288, dedicated to Saint James, but Alice Yate is said to have dissolved it after she took over the manor in 1546. The present Church of England parish church of Saint James the Less was designed by the Gothic Revival architect George Edmund Street in a 13th century English style and built in 1856. It has since been made redundant and converted into a private home.

Hanney Chapel is Non-conformist and was built in 1862. It was closed after the First World War but reopened in 1943.

Economic history

Dandridge's Mill is a Georgian water mill built in the 1820s as a silk mill. It is a Grade II Listed building but after it ceased working it became derelict. In 2007 it was restored as four private apartments. It is a low-carbon redevelopment with a number of sources of renewable energy, including an Archimedean screw on the millstream that powers the property's own electricity generator.

Hanney

Hanney was an ancient ecclesiastical parish about 3 miles (5 km) north of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse. It included the villages of East Hanney and West Hanney (known collectively as "The Hanneys") and Lyford. Hanney was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire.

History

The villages were formerly islands in marshland, hence the Old English "-ey" ending of their toponyms. Charney Bassett, Childrey and Goosey are other nearby examples.

Parish churches

The parish church of Saint James the Great, West Hanney was the mother church of the parish. The church of St. Mary, Lyford was built in the Middle Ages as a dependent chapel. East Hanney had a dependent chapel of St. James by 1288 but it was dissolved in the 16th century. A new chapel of St. James the Less was built in the 1850s but then made redundant in the 20th century.

References

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