Meetings Are Held

in the

 United Reform Church

(Opposite The Police Station)

41

The History of Kennington

12/12/2006

George Ross

We were told of some evidence of possible Roman activity in the area and Anglo-Saxon settlement but the first recorded references are during the 9th - 1th Centuries.

During the Middle Ages there was a small farming settlement. The owner of the land was Abingdon Abbey until the Dissolution and in 1557 a Thomas White got possession of part of Bagley Wood.

The church was built 1828 on site of an old chapel. Henry Bowery who was Rector of Sunningwell was responsible for the building of St Swithins which was built in the Norman style. Gladstone was a worshiper. The new church was started in the 1950's.

The Tandem public house was originally known as The Fish during the eighteenth century. The modern name came from the practice of students who were only allowed to keep one horse in the city stabling an extra horse at the pub to have a carriage and pair.

The railway came in the 1840's and Kennington was a junction with one line running to Princes' Risborough.

The population expanded from 1921, doubling in the next few years.

During the talk were heard about the University Boat Race held on the river between Radley and Kennington in 1943, The establishment of a university golf course in the early part of the nineteenth century, a part of which became the Memorial Field in 1946, and the creation of the ecclesiastical parish in 1936.

The talk was well illustrated with slides.