Cumnor

Cumnor has two public houses, the Vine and the Bear and Ragged Staff. It has a hairdresser, a sub-post office and greengrocer and a complementary health clinic. The newsagent closed in 2018 and the butchers in January, 2025. It has two churches: the Church of England parish church of St Michael in the centre of the village and Cumnor United Reformed Church in Leys Road. The village has well established football and cricket clubs, both located in Appleton Road.

Cumnor Primary School, located in the centre of the village has produced many notable pupils. The Oxford School of Music is in Cumnor Hill. Notable residents in October 2008 included novelist Philip Pullman{{Cite web |url= http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article494636.ece |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080907072424/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article494636.ece |url-status= dead |archive-date= 7 September 2008 |title=Some enchanted author |last=Cornwell |first=John |date=24 October 2004 |publisher=The Times Online |access-date=6 January 2010 |author-link=John Cornwell (writer)}} and celebrity chef Sophie Grigson.{{Cite web |url= http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/1227789.Sophie_s_guide_to_the_world_of_vegetables/ |title=Sophie's Guide to the World of Vegetables |last=Grigson |first=Sophie |author-link=Sophie Grigson |date=1 March 2007 |work=The Oxford Times "Weekend" |access-date=6 January 2010}} The composer and conductor Christopher Whelen lived in Cumnor for several years until his death in 1993.

File:Cumnor pub.jpg

File:AlexanderDennis Enviro400H HY11 BRD Cumnor.jpg bus in Oxford Road, Cumnor]]

Cumnor is served by the Oxford Bus Company routes 4 and 4B to Abingdon{{Cite web |url=https://assets.goaheadbus.com/media/cms_page_media/2019/8/27/city4_-_WEB_Timetable_-_from_1st_September_2019.pdf |date=1 September 2019 |title=4 4B Abingdon ∙ Wootton ∙ Cumnor ∙ Botley ∙ City Centre ∙ Wood Farm 4A Elms Rise 4C Dean Court |publisher=Oxford Bus Company |access-date=6 December 2019}} and Oxford and Stagecoach in Oxfordshire Gold route S9 to Oxford and Wantage.{{Cite web |date=4 August 2019 |url= https://tiscon-maps-stagecoachbus.s3.amazonaws.com/Timetables/Oxford_Timetables/S9_current.pdf |title=S9: Wantage - Grove - Oxford |publisher=Stagecoach in Oxfordshire |access-date=6 December 2019}}

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 a pond in Cumnor.

The earliest known record of Cumnor appears in a Saxon charter of 931 AD as Cumanoran. The Domesday Book of 1086 terms it Comenore. Other medieval spellings include Colmonora and Colmanora. The name derives from Old English for "Cuma's hill-slope". However, a Benedictine called Cumma was Abbot of Abingdon about 730 AD. {{sfn|Ekwall|1960|loc=Cumnor}} The parish in the Middle Ages was among the largest in Berkshire. It included Wytham, Seacourt, North Hinksey, South Hinksey and Wootton and was one of several in the Hundred of Hormer.{{Cite web |url=http://opendomesday.org/place/SP4604/cumnor/ |last=Powell-Smith |first=Anna |work=Open Domesday |title=Cumnor |access-date=9 April 2017}} In 1560 Cumnor Place saw the accidental death and rumoured suicide or murder of Amy Robsart, ailing wife of Lord Robert Dudley. The house was pulled down in 1810,{{Cite web |title=Cumnor Place (Cumnor Hall) (Dudley Castle) |url= http://dicamillocompanion.com/Houses_detail.asp?ID=4596|website=The DiCamillo Companion |access-date=8 March 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402111248/http://dicamillocompanion.com/Houses_detail.asp?ID=4596 |archive-date=2 April 2015 |url-status=dead}} because, it was said, her ghost gave locals trouble. In reality the house had become decrepit.

Cumnor includes some houses by Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect 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 1903–1904, completed 1907) but this was demolished in the 1990s. 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.{{Cite journal |last1=Seeley |first1=H. G. |year=1888 |title=On Cumnoria, an iguanodont genus founded upon the Iguanodon prestwichi, Hulke |journal=Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science |volume=57 |page=698}} Thomas Hardy based Lumsdon on Cumnor in his novel Jude the Obscure.

File:Cumnoria_NT.jpg was discovered near Cumnor]]

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

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |editor1-last=Ditchfield |editor1-first=PH |editor1-link=Peter Ditchfield |editor2-last=Page |editor2-first=William |editor2-link=William Page (historian) |others=assisted by John Hautenville Cope |year=1924 |chapter=Cumnor |title=A History of the County of Berkshire |volume=IV |series=Victoria County History |place=London |publisher=The St Katherine Press |pages=398–405 |url= https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp398-405 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Ekwall |first=Eilert |author-link=Eilert Ekwall |orig-year=1936 |year=1960 |title=Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names |edition=4th |place=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0198691033 |at=Cumnor}}
• {{Cite book |last=Pevsner |first=Nikolaus |author-link=Nikolaus Pevsner |year=1966 |title=Berkshire |series=The Buildings of England |place=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin Books |pages=124–126}}

{{Commons category|Cumnor}}

• [https://cumnorparishcouncil.org.uk/ Cumnor Parish Council]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100124100247/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/external/cumnor/ Cumnor Parish Record] from the Bodleian Library, Oxford University

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Category:Villages in Oxfordshire

Category:Civil parishes in Oxfordshire

Category:Vale of White Horse