Dunsden Green

Human settlement in England

Eye & Dunsden

District

South Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Region

South East

CountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townReadingPostcode districtRG4Dialling code0118PoliceThames ValleyFire Oxfordshire Ambulance South Central UK Parliament

Henley

WebsiteEye & Dunsden Parish Council

List of places: UK; England; Oxfordshire

51°29′32″N 0°56′14″W / 51.4923°N 0.9372°W / 51.4923; -0.9372

Dunsden Green or Dunsden is a village in the civil parish of Eye & Dunsden in the South Oxfordshire ward of Sonning Common, about 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Reading, Berkshire. Until 1866 it was in the Oxfordshire part of Sonning parish.^{[citation needed]}

History

The toponym means "valley of a man named Dyn(n)e". In 1086 the Domesday Book recorded it as Dunesdene, and a document of 1586 records it as Donsden Grene.^{[citation needed]} The Church of England parish church of All Saints^[1] was designed by the architect John Turner and built in 1842.^[2] Nearby is the former vicarage. The future First World War poet Wilfred Owen lived here from September 1911 to February 1913 when he served as a lay assistant to the parish priest, Rev. Herbert Wigan.^[3] The Dunsden Owen Association has been formed to commemorate the poet's links with the area, and a smartphone app can be downloaded which provides an interactive guide to the sites with which he was connected.^[4]

The village school was built in 1848. It closed in December 1973^[5] and is now the village hall.^[6] In 2002 the microbrewery Loddon Brewery was established in a converted 18th century brick and flint barn at Dunsden Green Farm.^[7] In November 2007 a new community orchard was established by the planting of a Blenheim Orange apple tree on the village green by Lord Phillimore, the main local landowner.^[8] The orchard is beside the village green.

Notable people

Robert Darke (1876–1961), cricketer
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), poet lived here from 1911 to 1913

Gallery

All Saints' parish church, Dunsden.
The green at Dunsden Green.

References

^ Parish Churches of Shiplake, Dunsden and Harpsden
^ Pevsner, Nikolaus; Sherwood, Jennifer (1974). The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p. 590. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
^ "Dunsden | The Wilfred Owen Association". Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
^ The Dunsden Owen Association
^ Law, Brian R. (2001). Eye and Dunsden. Two centuries of change in an Oxfordshire parish. Dunsden: Brian R. Law. p. 130. ISBN 0-9540199-0-3.
^ "Eye & Dunsden Parish Council: The Village Hall". Archived from the original on 7 February 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2009.
^ The Loddon Brewery Archived 12 January 2006 at the Wayback Machine
^ Eye & Dunsden Community Orchard