Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire

Description
Cuddesdon, a village and a parish in Oxfordshire. The village stands near the river Thame, 1 1/2 mile S ot Wheatley station on the G.W.R., and 6 miles SE by E of Oxford, and has a post and money order office under Oxford ; telegraph office. Wheatley. Acreage of the civil parish, 956; population, 295; of the ecclesiastical, 505. The parish includes also the hamlet. of Chippinghurst and the chapelry of Denton. Cuddesdon Palace is the seat of the Bishops of Oxford ; sprang from a timber structure erected in 1635 by Bishop Bancroft, and destroyed in 1644 by the Royalist governor of Oxford, to prevent it from being garrisoned by the Parliamentarians; and is a plain edifice built in 1679 by Bishop Fell. The chapel connected with it is in the Decorated English style, and was built in 1846 by Bishop Wilberforce. The theological college, opposite the Palace, is also in the Decorated English style; was opened in 1854; and contains a common hall, a dining hall, a chapel, and rooms for a vice-principal, chaplain, and 22 students. A cottage house for 4 students was built in 1877. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford, and the vicar is principal of the college; net yearly value, £212 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Oxford. The church is cruciform, with massive central tower; was built at the period of transition from Norman to Early English ; shows fine features of that period; and contains the grave of Bishop Bancroft, and mural monuments of Bishops Moss and Jackson. The churchyard has a touching epitaph on a daughter of Bishop Lowth. A reading and recreation room was built in 1886. There is a Wesleyan chapel erected in 1887.