Dumbleton was first referenced during the time of King Ethelred I (866-871) when he gave lands here to Abingdon Abbey.   Further land grants were made by Athelstan during his reign 925-940.    In 1287 the Abbot of Abingdon's claim to the right to a free warren at Dumbleton was upheld.   In August of that year Robert of Mortimer held the manor for half a knight's fee.

 

The Domesday Book, completed in 1086, contains an entry for Dumbleton which translates as -
        'St Mary's Church of Abingdon holds Dumbleton.  There are seven hides and a half (about 900 acres).   There are in
        lordship four plough tillages and 13 labourers and 8 smallholders with 8 ploughs, 6 slaves; a mill at 6s.  Value in
        the time of King Edward £12, now £9.   This manor paid tax in the time of King Edward'

 

Very few records are known over the next couple of hundred years.   References to various monks as Rectors of Dumbleton exist, such as -  Thomas from Abingdon in 1269; John in 1277; Walter Aston in 1350; and Reginald Pony in 1375.   In 1390 a yearly pension of 6d to 8d was sanctioned for the use of "sick Brethren in the house in the Diocese of Worcester" by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

 

In 1460 a John Daston was pardoned of outlawry.   The Dastons were an influential family in the Gloucestershire/Worcestershire borders.   Robert Daston had added the transept to Dumbleton Church in the 14th century as a burial chapel for himself and his family.

 

At the dissolution of the monasteries King Henry VIII granted the manor of Dumbleton to Sir Thomas Pope in 1536, thus ending more than 600 years of monastic rule.   On Pope's death the estate passed to Edmund Hutchins, the son of Pope's second sister.   Edmund married Dorothy Cocks, daughter of Thomas Cocks of Cleeve.   On his death the estate was transferred to his wife but he left the advowson [patronage] of Dumbleton Church to Trinity College at Oxford.  An annual fee of 10s was paid by the Rector of Dumbleton to Trinity College until 1981.  After Edmund's death Dorothy married Sir Charles Percy, third son of the Earl of Northumberland and a follower of the Earl of Essex.   He was involved in the Essex Rebellion of 1600 but, unlike Essex, was pardoned and later carried the news of Queen Elizabeth's death to James VI in Scotland.

When Dorothy died the estate passed to Charles Cocks her brother who held it until his death in 1654.   The estate remained in the Cocks family until Sir Richard Cocks' death in 1765 from a fall from his horse.  Sir Richard left no male heir so the title became extinct and the manor was closed and, eventually demolished.

 

Eventually Edward Holland, one of the founders  of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, began work on the new hall designed by
G S Repton in 1830.  Holland carried out many improvements to the village.   He rebuilt some of the farms and constructed a number of semi-detached cottages.   In order to carry out all this building work he established a brickyard to the north of the village.   Edward Holland died in 1875 and the estate was bought by the Eyres-Monsell family.  

 

The supply of suitable clay eventually ran out and the last building in Dumbleton brick was the village hall, built in 1899 and presented to the village to celebrate his daughter's 21st birthday.

 

During the First World War the village hall was used as a hospital for the wounded.   Between 1915 and 1918 667 cases were treated.   A plaque beside the main door commemorates this use of the hall.

 

Acknowledgement:   Much of this information has been taken from the booklet "Lands Called Dumbleton" by J C L Ellis-Mitchell and Revd P L C Richards.

 

 

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