Goosey is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in England, about northwest of

Wantage Wantage () is a historic market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Berkshire, it has been a ...

in the

Vale of White Horse The Vale of White Horse is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district of Oxfordshire in England. It Historic counties of England, was historically part of Berkshire. The area is commonly referred to as the 'Vale of ''the'' White Hors ...

. Goosey was part of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

until 1974, when the Vale of White Horse was transferred to

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

Toponym

Goosey's

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for ...

has evolved from the forms ''Gosie'', ''Gosi'' and ''Goseig'' used in the 11th century, through ''Goseya'' in the 12th century and ''Gossehay'' in the 16th century before reaching its current form.

History

Goosey was given by

Offa Offa ( 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death in 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of ...

, King of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

, in about 785 to the

Abbey of Abingdon Abingdon Abbey (formally Abbey of Saint Mary) was a Benedictine monastery in Abingdon-on-Thames in the modern county of Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. Situated near to the River Thames, it was founded in 675 AD and was dedicated to Mary, mot ...

in exchange for the Isle of Andersey. The monks established a cell at Goosey, which is now the site of Abbey Farm.

Manor

In the 11th century the manor was assessed during the reign of King

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was King of England from 1042 until his death in 1066. He was the last reigning monarch of the House of Wessex. Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeede ...

(1042–66) as having 17 hides and worth £9; and then in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as having 11 hides and worth £10. The abbey continued to hold the manor until 1538, when in the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was forced to surrender all its estates to

the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

. In 1544 Henry Norris of

Rycote Rycote is a Hamlet (place), hamlet southwest of Thame in Oxfordshire. The Oxfordshire Way long-distance path passes through. Saint Michael's chapel Richard and Sybil Quartermayne, lord of the manor, lord and lady of the Manorialism, manor of ...

and his wife Margery obtained a grant of the manor in

fee A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contrad ...

. Goosey remained in the Norris family until Henry Norris' grandson Francis Norris, 1st Earl of Berkshire sold it in 1608. Goosey then passed through the Tawyer, Matthews and Saxton families until the early 19th century, when Sir Charles Saxton left it to his niece Mary, the wife of Admiral Robert Dudley Oliver. The Oliver family still held the manor in the 1920s.

Parish church

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of All Saints' has an Early English

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

that was built in the 13th century. The present chancel is a late 16th-century Tudor addition, with a window given by Dr Christopher Wordsworth, one time Bishop of Lincoln, who was the vicar of Stanford and Goosey from 1850 to 1869. The church has a king post roof. The vestry on the north side of the church and the bell-turret on the nave gable were added in the 19th century. All Saints' is a

chapelry A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th century. Status A chapelry had a similar status to a Township (England), township, but was so named as it had a chapel of ease ...

of the parish of St Denys, Stanford in the Vale. All Saints' building is

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

References

Sources

* * {{Authority control Civil parishes in Oxfordshire Vale of White Horse Villages in Oxfordshire