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YARNTON’S
 

Yarnton Village

 

 

  
   



Yarnton has had a licenced public house since at least 1587. The Six Bells Inn is reputed to have gained its name in 1620, about the time that St. Bartholomew's acquired its ring of six bells (see above). The inn certainly bore this name by 1670.

The main Oxford-Woodstock road passes just east of the village. In 1719 it was made a turnpike and a toll house was built on Woodstock Road by the Grapes public house. The road ceased to be a turnpike in 1878.  It is now the A44 trunk road.

The Oxford and Rugby Railway passing just east of Yarnton opened in 1852 and the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway passing just south of the village opened in 1853. The two lines meet at Wolvercote Junction about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the village. A railway just 1.3 miles (2.1 km) long linking the OW&WR at Yarnton Junction with the Buckinghamshire Railway near Water Eaton opened in 1854 Yarnton station was built at the end of Church Lane. In 1862 the Witney Railway opened, joining the OW&W Railway at Yarnton junction.            

In 1962 British Railways closed Yarnton station and withdrew passenger services between Oxford and Witney.  In 1970 BR withdrew freight services from the former Witney Railway and dismantled the line.  The OW&WR is now the Cotswold Line and the O&RR has been renamed the Oxford Canal Line.

There had been sporadic attempts at educating the children of Yarnton since the 1580s, but none seems to have produced a school that endured and became established enough to have its own building.  A Sunday school was founded in 1783 and a day school was added in 1814. By 1817 the day school had its own room in the Parish Clerk's house and in 1831 it became a National Society school.  Larger purpose-built premises for the school opened in Church Lane opened in 1875 and were extended in 1901.  In 1932 the school was reorganised as a junior school, with senior pupils being transferred to the newly-opened secondary school at Gosford.  Yarnton school was enlarged again in 1955.           

In 1971 it moved to new premises in Rutten Lane and became the William Fletcher primary school    Its old 1875 premises are now a private house.

Pixey and Yarnton Meads were declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest for their flora and fauna in 1955.

Yarnton today, Yarnton has two pubs: the Red Lion on Cassington Road and the Grapes Inn on the A44 Woodstock Road. The village has a Women's Institute.  Yarnton has a youth football club, Yarnton Blues FC.  In 2007 the village hosted the Festinho festival which raised money for Brazilian children.
 



The older centre of the village. The Clerks house, the first schoolroom, built in 1817 on the left.  Jacksons Farm, one of eight farms in Yarnton pre-Second War World War, in the centre. Home Close, a typical tradesmen s house, once a smithy, on the right)