Kennington
Kennington, Oxfordshire, in the first part of the nineteenth century (when it was in Berkshire)
Kelly’s Directory for 1891 describes Kennington thus:
Kennington is a small village and ecclesiastical parish formed February 16th, 1826, out of the parishes of Radley and Sunningwell, separated from Oxfordshire by the river Isis and on the high road from Oxford to Abingdon, 2 miles south from the former, 4 north from Abingdon and 2 miles north from Radley station on the Birmingham and Oxford branch of the Great Western railway, in the Northern division of the country, hundred of Hormer, petty sessional division, union and county court district of Abingdon and in the rural deanery of Abingdon, archdeaconry of Berks and diocese of Oxford; the Thame branch of the Great Western railway crosses the river here over a bridge of three arches.
The church of St. Swithin, built and consecrated in 1828, is a small edifice of stone in the Norman style, consisting of chancel, nave and a western bell-cot containing one bell. The register dates from the year 1829. The living is a vicarage, gross yearly value £190m, in the gift of All Souls College, Oxford, and held since 1876 by the Rev. George Charles Bliss M.A. of Oxford University, who resides at 19 St Margaret’s road, Oxford.
Colonel Edgar John Disney, of Ingatestone, Essex, is lord of the manor and chief land-owner. Egrove house, the residence of Charles Cripps esq., is about a mile north-west of the village and commands a magnificent view of Oxford and the surrounding country; the celebrated picture of Oxford, by J.M.W. Turner R.A., is supposed to have been taken from this spot. The soil is principally stone brash, resting on the limestone. The crops are grain in succession. The area is 430 acres; the population in 1881 was 129.
Parish Clerk, Frank Smith East
Letters arrive through Oxford, 8.15 a.m. and 3.30 p.m. which is the nearest money order & telegraph office
Wall Letter Box is cleared at 10.25 a.m. & at 10 p.m. & Sundays at 9.40 a.m.
National School, built in 1876, for 35 children; average attendance, 26; Mrs Elizabeth Buckland, mistress
A new school has been erected at a cost of over £200, & was opened on the 15th September, 1890
Cripps Charles, Egrove House
Davis William, The Tandem P.H.
Hendy Thomas, grocer & baker
Mundy Job, farmer, Manor House farm