Longcot is a small village situated about 3 miles south of Faringdon between Fernham and Watchfield.
Longcot was part of the parish of Shrivenham until 1846 when combined with Fernham, it became a parish in its own right. It had its own Church dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin. In 1721, a tower of the old church fell down and the estimate for rebuilding it was £226, this was raised by a tax of 30 shillings on the yard lands of Longcot and Fernham. The tower was completed by Strong of Stanford who had built Wadley House for Mr Charles Pye. Enclosure of the common fields took place in 1779. The vicar of Shrivenham commented that “In 1740 there were some very dry seasons and there being a great want of water at Longcot for the cattle a carpenter whose name was Higgs was boring thro the rock at more than 30 feet deep, the instant the rock was perforated the water rose so rapidly as to oblige Higgs to use the gratest expectition to get out of the well since which experience all the wells at Longcot have been well supplied”. The schoolhouse in Longcot was erected in 1717 and a cottage and garden was used as a school for girls in 1847.1
c.1913 Roadside Farm House. On the left is the Post Office which was previously a public house. The Post Office was run by Frank and Gertrude Miller. They had nine children of which three, Ethel, Osbert and Stanley, died in their infancy. The other children were Violet, born 1914; Dorothy, born 1912; Edgar, born 1905; Flossie, born 1905; Jesse, born 1902; Ronald, born 1898. On the green are some of the Miller children.1
Public houses: Bricklayers Arms (1847/John Smith – 1891/George Hicks) and King & Queen, Shrivenham Road (1847/William Hickman – 1931/Francis C Bint and still open).
More… Oxfordshire Villages website: http://www.oxfordshirevillages.co.uk/valevillages/longcot.html
References:
- Photo and text scanned directly from The Changing Faces of Faringdon and Surrounding Villages – Book 2 p91-92 by Rosemary Church, Jim Brown, Millie Bryan and Beryl Newman. Robert Boyd Publications 2001.
- The English Place-Name Society search page – https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/search