page_title: Hatford
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hatford / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Church of England parish church of St George, Hatford, Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire): Norman south door
context_page_description: Hatford is a village and civil parish of some 1,000 acres in the Vale of White Horse. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.
context_section_description: The earliest evidence of human habitation is a Bronze Age spearhead, found near the river Hat. Signs of an early Iron Age settlement have also been found and there is thought to have been at least one Roman villa, in fields next to the present village. Despite its long history, the population of Hatford has not changed much in size since the time of the Domesday Book, when it had some 120 residents.
  Hatford has had two Anglican parish churches. The later of these, the church of the Holy Trinity (built in  1873–4 to a design by William Wigginton) became dilapidated and was finally deconsecrated and sold in 1972, for use as a private dwelling. The older Saint George's was reopened in the same year, reroofed in 1973 and reglazed in 1974; reinstated as Hatford's place of worship.
  St George's stands on the site of the Saxon church mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. It is mostly Early English Gothic, with a Norman south doorway to nave and chancel arch and a Norman font. One Saxon window is still visible. There is a sundial carved into the stone near the doorway.
  On 29 April 1555 Anne Dudley, the widowed Countess of Warwick, and Sir Edward Unton of Wadley House were married at St George's. Anne was the daughter of Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset and niece to Jane Seymour, who married King Henry VIII.
  The manor house, next to St George's parish church, has an 18th-century front but parts of the house date from the 15th century or even earlier. It stands at the western approach to the village and has an uninterrupted view of the Berkshire Downs and the Uffington White Horse. On the other side of St George's is the rectory. Next to the rectory, facing the B4508 road through the village, is Hatford Cottage, which was converted into a single house from a row of very early cottages. It was an antique shop in the 1960s.
  In 1643, during the English Civil War, the parish register records the burials of two soldiers killed in action.
  The old village off-licence received a direct hit from a German bomb in September 1940. One village girl was killed, as well as two young London boys, who had been evacuated to stay with their grandparents, in order to escape the Blitz.
caption: Norman south doorway of St George's parish church
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