Taynton
St John the Evangelist Church, Taynton, near Burford, Oxfordshire, c. 1900
This photograph is taken from the south, and shows a fine dry-stone wall.
Kelly’s Directory for 1891 describes Taynton thus:
Taynton is a parish situated at the western extremity of the county, on the Gloucestershire border, 1¾ miles north-west-by-west from Burford, 9 north-west from Witney and 6½ north-west from Alvescot station on the East Gloucestershire railway, in the Mid division of the county, hundred of Chadlington, petty sessional division of Bampton West, union and county court district of Witney, rural deanery of Witney and archdeaconry and diocese of Oxford. The river Windrush flows through the parish.
The ancient church of St. John, an edifice of stone chiefly in the Decorated style, consists of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, north porch and a tall and narrow western tower containing 4 bells and a clock, and on the north side a vestry: the chancel, added in 1843, is modern Early English: the east end is filled with a triple lancet window and in the south wall a piscina: arcades of two arches each divide the nave and aisles, and in the north aisle there is a niche with ball flower mouldings: there are remains of a hagioscope in the south aisle, which has also a richly moulded Perpendicular doorway: the font is supported by quaintly carved figures attached to a panelled shaft and the upper portion is divided octagonally by kneeling figures, each division containing a grotesque bird or anima;: the tower and north side of the church are embattled: in the north aisle are mural tablets to the Sumner family, from 1618 to 1624: there are 185 sittings, 140 being free. The register dates from the year 1538. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £55, with residence, in the gift of Edward Rhys Wingfield esq. D.L., J.P. and held since 1873 by the Rev. William Patrick Lennard Hand B.A. of Trinity College, Dublin, who is also vicar of Great Barrington, Gloucestershire.
The charities for distribution in clothing, bread and money amount to £19 yearly: there is also a yearly sum of £5 from the Fifield estate for educational purposes.
In this parish are quarries of very excellent stone of the Great Oolite series of which many buildings in Oxford have been constructed.
Edward Rhys Wingfield esq. D.L., J.P. of Barrington Park, who is lord of the manor, the Crown and J.J. Bickerton esq. are the principal landowners. The soil is limestone brash; subsoil, rock. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats and turnips. The area is 1,944 acres; rateable value, £1,324; the population in 1881 was 232.
Parish Clark, James Pittaway
Post Office: Thomas Pittaway, receiver. Letters through Burford R.S.O. arrive at 7.15am; dispatched 6pm. Burford is the nearest money order & telegraph office
Public Elementary School (boys & girls) erected in 1877, for 60 children; average attendance, 40; Henry Thomas Brunt, master
Hand Rev. William Patrick Lennard B.A. [vicar]
Stephens Mrs
Houlton Henry Thomas, farmer
Dunford Annie, Eliza & Jane (Misses), shopkeepers & bakers & beer retailers
Matthews Harold William, farmer
Pittaway Thomas, carpenter, Post office
Stephens John, farmer
Stephens Walter, farmer, Manor farm