Wantage, Berkshire

Description
Wantage, a market and union town, and a parish in Berks. The town stands on the Wilts and Berks Canal, in White Horse Vale, 2 1/4 miles SSW of Wantage Road station on the G.W.R., 10 SW of Abingdon, and 18 by rail from Oxford. A tramway connects the town of Wantage with Wantage Road station. Wantage is supposed to occupy the site of a Roman station, was the birthplace of King Alfred and a residence of other Saxon kings, belonged then to the Crown, passed through many noble hands, including Baldwin de Bethune, William de Valence, Hugh Bigod, Fulk Fitzwarren, and the Bourchiers Earls of Bath. The manor now belongs to the urban district council of Wantage. A fine statue of King Alfred, executed in Sicilian marble by H.S.H. the Prince of Hohenloe-Langenburg, at a cost of 2000 guineas, stands in the centre of the market-place. The town is the head of a petty sessional division and a county court district, and is the centre of a large agricultural district. It formerly carried on a considerable manufacture of hempen cloth, but this is now only pursued upon a limited scale. There is, however, a large brass and iron foundry, and agricultural implement works. There is a head post office, two banks, a town-hall, and a corn exchange. The market, which was formerly held on Saturday, is now held every Wednesday, and a sale for agricultural stock is held fortnightly on a Wednesday. Fairs are held on the first Saturday in March and the first Saturday in May, and on 18 July for cherries. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; gross value, £561 with residence, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. The church, dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, is a large and handsome cruciform building of stone in the Norman, Early English, and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, north and two south side chapels, transepts, nave, aisles, N and S porches, and an embattled central tower. There is a fine alabaster monument of Sir W. Fitzwarren, a Knight of the Garter, and his lady of the 14th century, a large brass of Sir Ivo Fitzwarren (1414), and several smaller ones, including an early brass (1320) of a priest. There are Baptist, Particular Baptist, and Wesleyan chapels. The charities of the town are valuable and important, amounting in the aggregate to about £600 a year. They include the income derived from 156 acres of town lands with the rent of several houses and cottages, several. valuable bequests, almshouses for thirty poor persons, and a school endowment. The grammar school, called after King Alfred, formerly stood in the churchyard, but was removed in 1851 to a convenient block of buildings in the Early English style, which were erected on the south side of the town. It has an income of about £200, and there is accommodation for about 100 day boys and boarders. There are a training school for teachers and industrial girls, a large sisterhood with a home for penitent females, and a cottage hospital and dispensary with a valuable endowment. The parish includes the township and ecclesiastical parish of Grove and the hamlet of Charlton, which are noticed separately, and the hamlet of West Lockinge. Area of Wantage, 2468 acres of land and 10 of water; population, 3669: of Charlton, 1884 acres; population, 260; of Grove, 1779 acres of land and 12 of water; of West Lockinge, 837 acres, population, 75. Wantage has an urban district council consisting of fifteen members. Bishop Butler was a native of Wantage. In the neighbourhood there are many places of interest connected with early English history. On many of the hills there are ancient earthworks, and the famous White Horse Hill, Wayland Smith's Cave (a cromlech built up of megaliths called " Sarsden Stones "), and the curious " Blowing Stone" are all within a moderate distance. An excellent description of this neighbourhood is to be found in the opening chapter of " Tom Brown's School Days."