Cumnor


Cumnor is a village and civil parish west of the centre of Oxford, England. The village is about southwest of Botley and its centre is west of the A420 road to Swindon.
Cumnor parish includes Cumnor Hill,, Chawley, the Dean Court area on the edge of Botley and the outlying settlements of Chilswell, Farmoor, Filchampstead and Swinford. The parish was part of Berkshire until the 1974 local government boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 5,755.

Amenities

Cumnor has two public houses, the Vine and the Bear and Ragged Staff. It has a butcher, a hairdresser, a sub-post office and greengrocer and a complementary health clinic. The newsagent closed in 2018. It has three churches: the Church of England parish church of St Michael in the centre of the village, Cumnor United Reformed Church in Leys Road and Living Stones Christian Fellowship which meets in the Primary School.
The village has football and cricket clubs, both located on Appleton Road.
Cumnor Primary School has produced many notable pupils who have attended schools such as Matthew Arnold School, Abingdon School, Magdalen College School, Oxford High School for Girls, Our Lady's Abingdon and the School of St Helen and St Katharine in Abingdon. The Oxford School of Music is in Cumnor Hill.
Notable residents, as of October 2008, included novelist Philip Pullman and celebrity chef Sophie Grigson. The composer and conductor Christopher Whelen lived here for several years until his death in 1993.
bus on Oxford Road, Cumnor

Public transport

Cumnor is served by Oxford Bus Company routes 4 and 4B to Abingdon and Oxford and Stagecoach in Oxfordshire Gold route S9 to Oxford and Wantage.

History

The earliest known record of Cumnor is in a Saxon charter from AD 931 that records it as Cumanoran. The Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Comenore. Other Mediæval spellings include Colmonora and Colmanora. The name is derived from Old English, meaning "Cuma's hill-slope". A Benedictine called Cumma was Abbot of Abingdon around AD 730.
In the Middle Ages the parish was one of the largest in Berkshire, and included Wytham, Seacourt, North Hinksey, South Hinksey and Wootton. The parish was one of many in the Hundred of Hormer.
In 1560 Cumnor Place was the scene of the accidental death and rumoured suicide or murder of Amy Robsart, the ailing wife of Lord Robert Dudley. The house was pulled down in 1810, because, it is said, her ghost gave the locals so much trouble. In reality, the ancient house had become decrepit.
Thomas Hardy based Lumsdon on Cumnor in his novel Jude the Obscure.
Cumnor includes some houses by Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect most noted for his designs for Portmeirion. His Cumnor houses are some of his earliest commissions, including his first commission, Larkbeare on Cumnor Hill, designed whilst he was still a student at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. The other examples are Cutts End House, Hurstcote, and Larkbeare Cottage. He also designed Cumnor Rise Hospital at a similar time to Larkbeare but this was demolished in the 1990s.