Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for SHAW-CUM-DONNINGTON

SHAW-CUM-DONNINGTON, a parish in Newbury district, Berks; on the river Lambourn, 1½ mile N by E of Newbury r. station. It has a post-office, of the name of Donnington, under Newbury. Acres, 1, 989. Real property, £4, 857. Pop., 680. Houses, 152. S. manor, with S. House, belongs to H. R. Eyre, Esq.; and D.manor, to W. H. H. Hartley, Esq. S. House dates from the time of Elizabeth; was garrisoned for Charles I., at the time of the second battle of Newbury; and has a hole in an oak-wainscot, through which a musket-ball passed while the king was dressing at the window. D. Castle belonged to the family of the poet Chaucer; is commonly, but erroneously, said to have been the poet's birth-place; was a centre of conflict in the civil wars of Charles I.; stood on the crown of a hill, shrouded among trees; was engirt, at the time of the wars, with entrenchments, still visible; and is now represented by only an ivy-cladgate-way flanked with tall towers, and by a piece of adjoining wall. D. Priory stands at the foot of the castlehill; was built in 1576; and occupies the site of a small Trinitarian priory, founded in 1394 by Sir R. Abberbury. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £623.* Patron, H. R. Eyre, Esq. The church was re-built in 1840, and is in the Norman style. There are a parochial school, an almshouse-hospital with £401 a year, and other charities £44.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "countries, 4th order divisions")
Administrative units: Shaw Cum Donnington AP/CP       Newbury RegD/PLU       Berkshire AncC
Place names: DONNINGTON     |     SHAW CUM DONNINGTON
Place: Shaw

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