Places to see in ( Wantage - UK )
Places to see in ( Wantage - UK )
Wantage is a market town and civil parish in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. The town is on Letcombe Brook, about 8 miles south-west of Abingdon, 10 miles west of Didcot, 15 miles (24 km) south-west of Oxford and 14 miles (23 km) north north-west of Newbury.
Historically part of Berkshire, it is notable as the birthplace of King Alfred the Great in 849. In 1974 the area administered by Berkshire County Council was greatly reduced, and Wantage, in common with other territories South of the River Thames, became part of a considerably enlarged Oxfordshire.
Wantage was a small Roman settlement but the origin of the toponym is somewhat uncertain. It is generally thought to be from an Old English phrase meaning decreasing river. King Alfred the Great was born at the royal palace there in the 9th century. Wantage appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. Its value was £61 and it was in the king's ownership until Richard I passed it to the Earl of Albemarle in 1190.
In 1877 he paid for a marble statue of King Alfred by Count Gleichen to be erected in Wantage market place, where it still stands today. He also donated the Victoria Cross Gallery to the town. This contained paintings by Louis William Desanges depicting deeds which led to the award of a number of VCs, including his own gained during the Crimean War. It is now a shopping arcade. Since 1848, Wantage has been home to the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin, one of the largest communities of Anglican nuns in the world. Wantage once had two breweries which were taken over by Morlands of Abingdon.
Wantage is at the foot of the Berkshire Downs escarpment in the Vale of the White Horse. There are gallops at Black Bushes and nearby villages with racing stables at East Hendred, Letcombe Bassett, Lockinge and Uffington. Wantage includes the suburbs of Belmont to the west and Charlton to the east. Grove to the north is still just about detached and is a separate parish. Wantage parish stretches from the northern edge of its housing up onto the Downs in the south, covering Chain Hill, Edge Hill, Wantage Down, Furzewick Down and Lattin Down. The Edgehill Springs rise between Manor Road and Spike Lodge Farms and the Letcombe Brook flows through the town. Wantage is home to the Vale and Downland Museum. There is a large market square containing a statue of King Alfred, surrounded by shops some with 18th-century facades. Quieter streets radiate from it, including one towards the large Church of England parish church. Wantage is the Alfredston of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.
Wantage is at the crossing of the B4507 valley road, the A417 road between Reading and Cirencester and the A338 road between Hungerford (and junction 14 of the M4 motorway) and Oxford. Bus services link Wantage with Oxford as well as other towns and villages including Abingdon, Didcot, Faringdon and Grove. Stagecoach in Oxfordshire provide the main services between Wantage and Oxford with up to three buses per hour Monday to Saturday and up to two buses per hour on Sunday's and bank holidays, operated under Stagecoach's luxury Stagecoach Gold brand. Stagecoach provides a late-night service on Friday and Saturday evenings with buses running to Oxford until 2am and buses from Oxford to Wantage until 3am.
Wantage does not have a railway station; Didcot Parkway, 8 miles to the east, is the nearest station, with services towards London, Bristol and Cardiff. The Great Western Mainline is just north of Grove (2 miles North of Wantage) where the former Wantage Road railway station used to be. It was closed during the Beeching cuts in 1964. The Wantage Tramway used to link Wantage with Wantage Road station. The tramway's Wantage terminus was in Mill Street and its building survives, but little trace remains of the route. Wantage has been the site of a church since at least the 10th century and the present Church of England parish church of Saints Peter and Paul dates from the 13th century, with many additions since. SS Peter and Paul also contains seventeen 15th-century misericords.
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