The parish is bounded to the west partly by the River Glyme, to the north partly by a stream that joins the River Dorn, to the south-east by the course of Akeman StreetRoman road, to the south-west by the pale of Blenheim Great Park and on other sides by field boundaries. It includes two deserted medieval villages: Dornford on the River Dorn, and Hordley on the River Glyme just downstream of the confluence of the Dorn and Glyme.[11]
The Domesday Book of 1086 records Wootton as the court of the hundred of Wootton. At the time of the Hundred Rolls in 1279 Hordley was recorded as having 19 households and 150 acres (61 ha) of land.[17] By the early part of the 16th century this had declined to only five (adult) residents.[17] The Gregory family had converted most of the farmland from arable to pasture[17] which would have done much to reduce the village population.
Hordley house
The house at Hordley Farm, about 2⁄5 mile (1 km) southeast of Wootton, was built for the Gregory family[17] in about 1500.[18] It is arranged around three and a half sides of a quadrangle, possibly following the plan of an earlier medieval house on the same site.[17] The kitchen fireplace and two of the doorways have four-centred arches that date from about 1500, and the north wing has two square-headed windows from the later 16th century.[18] The ground-floor rooms have some 17th-century panelling.[18] In 1750 the house was remodelled and a gazebo was built in the garden.[18]
Village school
In 1787 the Rev. Charles Parrott, sometime vicar of Saham Toney in Norfolk, died leaving a bequest for a school to be founded and run in Wootton.[12] Early in the 19th century further schools were added in Wootton, including one run by the rector.[12] In 1836 a new building was completed to merge all education in the village into one school.[12] The Rector, Rev. L.C. Lee, paid towards the cost of the site and gave capital and the income from several cottages to fund the new school.[12] In 1942 it was reorganised as a junior school.[12] It is now Wootton-by-Woodstock Church of England Primary School.[19]
Recent history
Wootton had two public houses until 2008, when the King's Head closed.[20]
Sheep's Bank SSSI[k] is an isolated fragment of species-rich grassland situated in an area now largely converted to arable and re-seeded pasture. The site represents the eastern-most example of traditionally managed Cotswold grassland, falling mid-way between the Jurassiclimestone grasslands of Gloucestershire to the west and Northamptonshire to the east.[21]
The village has one public house, the Killingworth Castle Inn, which was built in 1637. It is now a gastropub that has won a Michelin Bib Gourmand and two AA rosettes.[22] Wootton also has a village store.[23]
^Cleveland Dialect (J.C. Atkinson). < Hob >
. . ."There were many Hobs, each with a local habitation and a local name". . .(PDF page 322, actual page 262).[24]