Fyfield, Berkshire
Historical Description
Fyfield, a parish in Berks, near the river Isis, at the boundary with Oxford, 5 miles W by N of Abingdon town and station on the G.W.R., and containing the hamlets of Netherton and Fyfield Wick. It has a post office under Abingdon; money order office, Marcham; telegraph office, Kingston Bagpuze. Acreage, 1603; population, 303. An hospital was founded here before the time of Henry VI. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net yearly value, £110 with residence. Patron, St John's College,. Oxford. The church is a building of stone, chiefly in the-Middle and Third Pointed styles, and contains the tomb and; effigies of Sir John Golafre, popularly called Gulliver. There is a small Baptist chapel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Berkshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Fyfield St. Nicholas | |
| Hundred | Ock | |
| Poor Law union | Abingdon |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The early registers, destroyed by the fire of 1893, dated from the year 1583.
Churches
Church of England
St. Nicholas (parish church)
The church of St. Nicholas, an edifice of stone, chiefly in the Middle and Third Pointed styles, consisting of chancel, nave of four bays, north aisle, north or Golafre chantry, and a modern western, turret containing a clock and 2 bells, was almost entirely destroyed by fire Oct. 27th, 1893, including the miserere stalls and screen of St. John Baptist's chapel and the Decorated rood-screen: in the chancel is the tomb of Lady Catherine Gordon (the "White Rose of Scotland"), daughter of Alexander, 3rd Earl of Huntly, and widow of Perkin Warbeck, one of the pretenders to the throne in the reign of Henry VII.; she died c. 1527; and in the north or Golafre chantry is the altar-tomb of Sir Thomas Golafre, lord of the manor, who died in 1442, with his effigy in armour upon the upper slab, while in the open space below lies the figure of a shrouded skeleton; both these tombs have been damaged, but not irreparably; the restoration of the church was completed in Nov. 1894.
Baptist
Baptist Chapel
There is a small Baptist chapel.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Fyfield was in Abingdon Registration District from 1837 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Fyfield from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Fyfield (St. Nicholas))
- Kelly's Directory of Berkshire, 1915
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Berkshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Fyfield are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Berkshire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitations of Berkshire 1532, 1566, and 1665-6 is available online.