| Cholsey | |
|---|---|
 St Mary's parish church | |
  Cholsey Location withinOxfordshire | |
| Area | 16.52 km2 (6.38 sq mi) [1] |
| Population | 3,457 (2011 Census) |
| • Density | 209/km2 (540/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | SU5886 |
| • London | 45 mi (72 km) |
| Civil parish |
|
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Wallingford |
| Postcode district | OX10 |
| Dialling code | 01491 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | Cholsey Parish Council |
| |
Cholsey is a village andcivil parish immediately south ofWallingford inSouth Oxfordshire. Its population in 2011 was 3,457.[2]2011 Census. Its parish boundary, some 17 miles (27 km) long, reaches from the edge of Wallingford into theBerkshire Downs. The village green called "The Forty" has a substantial and ancient walnut tree.
Winterbrook, historically the northern part of Cholsey, was absorbed into Wallingford in 2015.Winterbrook Bridge in the parish carries the Wallingford by-pass across theRiver Thames. The author DameAgatha Christie, Lady Mallowan, lived at Winterbrook House until her death.John Masefield, poet laureate, lived at Lollingdon Farm in Cholsey from 1915 to 1917.Cholsey was transferred fromWallingford Rural District inBerkshire to the district of SouthOxfordshire in 1974.
ABronze Age site has been found beside theRiver Thames at Whitecross Farm in the northeast of theparish.[3] A pre-Roman road, theIcknield Way, crosses theRiver Thames at Cholsey. A find announced in 2017 was of a substantial Roman site in Celsea Place.[4] Archaeologists discovered the best examples of corn dryers they have seen, with precision suggesting they were built by an engineer. Sites of burials and cremation pots have also been found. There is also part of aRoman villa, the majority of which appeared to have extended out under the existing road and houses and will have suffered significant unrecorded damage. The section of villa remaining within the archaeologically excavated area has been preserved in situ.
The village itself was founded on an island ("Ceol's Isle") in marshy ground close to the Thames. There is evidence that theHouse of Wessex royal family owned land in Cholsey in the sixth and seventh centuries. At this time the town was home to aSaint Wilgyth who wasvenerated locally in theMiddle Ages. A royalnunnery,Cholsey Abbey, was founded in the village in 986 by Queen DowagerÆlfthryth on land given by her son, KingÆthelred the Unready. The nunnery is thought to have been destroyed by invadingVikings in 1006 when they camped in Cholsey after setting nearby Wallingford ablaze.
However,Saxonmasonry still survives in theChurch of England parish church ofSt Mary. Most of thisflint and stone church was built in the twelfth century. The church is cruciform. Additions were made to it in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.[5] In the thirteenth-century atithe barn was built in the village. It was, at the time, the largest aisled building in the world, being 51 feet (16 m) high, 54 feet (16 m) wide and over 300 feet (91 m) long.[6] It was demolished in 1815.Fair Mile Hospital, a formerpsychiatric hospital, opened near Cholsey in 1870 and closed in 2003.[7] In 2011–14 its Victorian buildings were converted to homes and new housing was built in its grounds.
Cholsey is served byCholsey railway station, a calling point forGreat Western Railway stopping services on theGreat Western Main Line betweenReading andDidcot. The station was also the junction for a branch line toWallingford, nicknamed the "Wallingford Bunk", which theheritageCholsey and Wallingford Railway now operates onbank holidays and some weekends. From Mondays to SaturdaysThames Travel bus route 136 links Cholsey with Wallingford andBenson. There is no evening, Sunday or bank holiday service.[8]
Writer and poetJohn Masefield lived in the parish for several years duringWorld War I as tenant of Lollingdon Farm at the foot of theBerkshire Downs. He wasPoet Laureate from 1936 to his death in 1967 and wrote a series of poems and sonnets calledLollingdon Downs. The farmhouse, on Westfield Road, has beenlisted grade II since 1986.[9]
The architectEdward Prioleau Warren (1856–1937), lived at Breach House, in Halfpenny Lane, Cholsey, built in 1906, which he designed for himself.[10] The building is grade II listed.[9]
The grave of novelist DameAgatha Christie is in the churchyard of St Mary's. She lived with her second husband, archaeologist SirMax Mallowan, atWinterbrook House, formerly in the north of the parish, from about 1934 and died there in 1976.[11] She and her husband had chosen a burial plot in the mid-1960s just under the perimeter wall of the churchyard. About twenty journalists and television reporters attended her funeral service, some having travelled from as far away as South America. Thirty wreaths adorned her grave including one from the cast of her long-running playThe Mousetrap, and another sent "on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers" from the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.[12]
