VICTORIAN

Conclusion

During the Victorian period much activity took place not only to define and record boundaries but also to consolidate and rationalise boundary patterns for civil purposes driven by needs, such as, the simplification of the collection of poor law rates. Detached parts of parishes were eliminated and new civil parishes created. This is also a period that saw the building of new Anglican churches and creation of parishes to support them, particularly in rapidly developing urban areas.

In this investigation we encountered ecclesiastical parishes whose role administered the needs of the church; civil parishes whose role administered the needs of local government, and the township (and its subdivisions of hamlets) whose role administered the farming needs of the community. The most ancient of these is the township whose bounds were then ‘borrowed’ by the parish both in its ecclesiastical and civil forms. We can summarise the pattern of boundaries at Wantage as follows:

• Prior to the nineteenth century the boundaries of the township, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish of Wantage were one and the same, and encompassed the hamlets of Grove, Charlton and West Lockinge where each contained a settlement with its own independent field system.
• The hamlet of Grove became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1832.
• The hamlets of Grove, Charlton and West Lockinge became separate civil parishes in 1866.
• Their boundaries were re-organised in 1934 when Charlton was abolished and West Lockinge was joined to East Lockinge to create a single civil parish of Lockinge.