Cumnor

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 Bear and Ragged Staff public house.

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[2] and celebrity chef Sophie Grigson.[3] The composer and conductor Christopher Whelen lived here for several years until his death in 1993.

An Oxford Bus Company bus on Oxford Road, Cumnor

Cumnor is served by Oxford Bus Company routes 4 and 4B to Abingdon[4] and Oxford and Stagecoach in Oxfordshire Gold route S9 to Oxford and Wantage.[5]

Cumnor parish adjoins the River Thames on its south bank near Bablock Hythe. The centre of Cumnor village lies 1.5 miles to the east.

The source of the Osse Stream is in a pond in Cumnor.

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.[6]

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.[7]

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,[8] 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 (1903–04, completed 1907) on Cumnor Hill, designed whilst he was still a student at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. The other examples are Cutts End House (1911, Appleton Road), Hurstcote (1922, Appleton Road), and Larkbeare Cottage (1910, Cumnor Hill; originally a gardener's cottage associated with Larkbeare). He also designed Cumnor Rise Hospital at a similar time to Larkbeare (designed 1903–04, completed 1907) but this was demolished in the 1990s.

Cumnoria prestwichii was discovered near Cumnor

The Kimmeridge Clay Formation outcrops near Cumnor. The dinosaur Cumnoria prestwichii was discovered near Cumnor before 1879 and was named by Harry Govier Seeley in 1888.[9]

• Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor (1903–84)
• Ruth Deech, Baroness Deech of Cumnor (born 1943)
• Cumnor Hurst

• Ditchfield, PH; Page, William, eds. (1924). "Cumnor". A History of the County of Berkshire. Victoria County History. IV. assisted by John Hautenville Cope. London: The St Katherine Press. pp. 398–405.
• Ekwall, Eilert (1960) [1936]. Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cumnor. ISBN 0198691033.
• Pevsner, Nikolaus (1966). Berkshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 124–126.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cumnor.

• Cumnor Parish Council
• Cumnor Parish Record from the Bodleian Library, Oxford University