Henley: Boundaries, Landscape and Population

HENLEY PARISH AND BOROUGH

The Prosperous market town of Henley lies by the river Thames amongst the wooded foothills of the Chilterns, in Oxfordshire's extreme south-eastern corner. (fn. 1) Laid out as a planned town probably during the 12th century, it developed during the Middle Ages as a major trans-shipment point for goods and foodstuffs being transported to or from London. Subsequently it became a centre for malting and coaching, before its reinvention as a fashionable resort during the 19th century with the establishment of its world-famous Royal Regatta (started in 1839), and the belated arrival of the railway.

The town occupied the south-eastern corner of a sizable ancient parish, which extended up the hillside to encompass much of Lambridge Wood, the site of Henley park, and the small medieval settlement of Badgemore – an area which by the late 19th century, like much of the surrounding countryside, was dotted with fashionable villas. The following account treats the rural part of the parish as well as the town itself, including suburban areas which, until 1894, lay just over the southern parish boundary in Rotherfield Greys parish.

Boundaries, Landscape and Population

Parish Boundaries

In 1879 the ancient parish comprised 1,758 a., including Henley borough, the outlying country seats at Badgemore and Henley park, and agricultural land and woodland (Fig. 5). Its eastern boundary was the river Thames, which also formed the county boundary with Berkshire. The north-eastern boundary followed that between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and, like the parish's south-western boundary with Rotherfield Greys, cut a sinuous course through farmland and woodland, largely ignoring the outline of modern fields. The parish's western boundary, with Bix, followed a complex course through Lambridge Wood, along fields and roads, and through the hamlet of Lower Assendon. (fn. 2)

The shire boundaries were established by the early 11th century, (fn. 3) and the parish's other boundaries almost certainly derived from those of the late Anglo-Saxon and early medieval estates which were crystallising in the area by the mid 11th century. By 1086 Bix, Rotherfield Greys, and Badgemore all included independent manors carved from the large royal estate of Benson or Bensington, and though Henley itself remained attached to Benson until much later, the parish's later perimeters must already have been defined in outline by those of surrounding estates. Badgemore, unlike Rotherfield Greys and Bix, never acquired a church or chapel, and was absorbed into the emerging Henley parish probably during the Middle Ages. Its occasional association with Rotherfield Greys in medieval documents reflected tenurial rather than ecclesiastical links. (fn. 4)

The south-eastern boundary with Rotherfield Greys was probably adjusted when the planned town of Henley was laid out. By the 14th century it ran along the town ditch and the middle of Friday Street on the town's southern edge; houses south of there remained within Rotherfield Greys parish until the 19th century. (fn. 5) In the 1790s the boundary passed from the ditch to Friday Street through the parlour and kitchen of a house at the north-east corner of Greys Road, presumably an encroachment straddling the medieval boundary. (fn. 6) The town ditch itself formed part of the stream or brook from which Brook (later Duke) Street was named, which flowed from Badgemore into the Thames a little way north of Friday Street and Greys Road; (fn. 7) possibly it formed part of the Henley– Rotherfield boundary before the town's creation. The neighbouring South field, just over the boundary, belonged to Rotherfield by the 1320s, but may formerly have had some connection with Henley, from which it was clearly named. (fn. 8) Some land there belonged to the Badgemore estate in the 15th century, (fn. 9) and in the 19th century the rector of Henley was still entitled to tithes from some 32 a. there, as well as from nearby Greys meadow. (fn. 10)

The ancient parish remained unaltered until 1894, when it was divided under the Local Government Act. Its rural part, including Badgemore, Friar Park, and Henley Park, was detached to form an independent civil parish of Badgemore (1,530 a.), leaving the northern part of the recently extended borough as a civil parish of 228 acres. The borough's southern part, extended into Rotherfield Greys parish in 1892, became a separate civil parish called Greys (321 a.); that was incorporated into Henley civil parish in 1905, and thereafter parish and borough were conterminous. (fn. 11) In 1932, following further urban expansion, the parish and borough were increased to 1,382 a. (559 ha.) by intakes from Badgemore (402 a.), Rotherfield Greys (244 a.), Rotherfield Peppard (186 a.), and Harpsden (1 a.), and the rest of Badgemore parish was dissolved in 1952, when it was divided between Bix and Rotherfield Greys. The ancient boundary with Buckinghamshire, by then no longer bordering on Henley parish, was adjusted in 1991 to follow modern field boundaries, though Henley civil parish itself remained unaltered in 2001. (fn. 12)

Urban Boundaries

Early Town Boundaries

The medieval town was laid out in the south-eastern corner of the ancient parish in or before the late 12th century, its eastern and southern boundaries coinciding (perhaps following some early adjustments) with those of the parish. In the 1780s, when its boundaries were mapped, it covered some 78 a., bounded on the north by Bell Lane, on the east by the Thames, on the south by Friday Street and the town ditch, and on the west by rectilinear property boundaries around the workhouse site and adjoining hop gardens. The south-western boundary ran partway across the western edge of the market place, before turning westwards to run behind houses on Gravel Hill. (fn. 13) (Figs 5, 7 and 11.)

Except on the west those boundaries appear to have been established in outline by the mid 14th century. The northern boundary coincided with that between the medieval manor of Henley (which included the town), and the manors of Bensington and Phyllis Court, which, with houses at Northfield End, lay outside. The boundary was established by the 1340s, (fn. 14) having probably been moved northwards from the line of New Street following an early planned expansion of the town. (fn. 15) The south-western boundary around Gravel Hill, though probably adjusted at the town's creation and the laying-out of the market place, was also tenurial in origin, marking the division between the rural estate of Badgemore, to the west, and the manors of Henley or Bensington. In 1349 a house and curtilage there (presumably straddling the boundary) lay within the fees of both Henley and Badgemore, while in 1491 a house on the street's south side lay entirely in Badgemore, presumably just outside the town. (fn. 16) In the Middle Ages, bars and walls (probably low earthen banks) marked the boundary in that area. (fn. 17) The Friday Street boundary with Rotherfield Greys, established by the early 14th century, is described above. (fn. 18)

The 18th- and 19th-century boundaries further west at the top of Gravel Hill were much more regular, enclosing what looks like a relatively late extension. (fn. 19) Part of that area belonged to the medieval Henfield north of the market place, which abutted houses apparently included in the town. (fn. 20) Whether the field itself was included is unclear, however, and more likely the area was brought into the town after 1651, when the corporation bought land there (known later as Townlands) which in 1790 became the site of the parish workhouse. (fn. 21) The boundary was well established by the 1780s, reinforced by local tradition and by occasional perambulations, (fn. 22) and it remained unaltered when mapped by the Ordnance Survey commissioners in the 1870s.

Town Boundaries from 1883

In 1864 a local board district was created with jurisdiction over a wider area than the town, extending northwards to Marlow Road and along the Fair Mile, westwards to Rotherfield Court, and southwards to Station Road. The town was extended to include that area in 1883 when a reformed corporation was established by royal charter, although fast-growing suburbs in Rotherfield Greys parish (along Reading Road) remained largely excluded. (fn. 23) Those were incorporated in 1892 when the municipal borough was increased to 549 a., encompassing a block of 321 a. in Rotherfield Greys which stretched as far south as Newtown and Mill Lane (Fig. 11). On the west and north the boundary took in Phyllis Court, part of Friar Park, and houses at Northfield End. The borough's southern part was brought within Henley civil parish in 1905, making borough and parish conterminous, although the earlier arrangement was reflected in the creation of north and south wards, with a boundary running along Greys Road and Friday Street. (fn. 24) The expansion of both borough and parish in 1932 brought in Harpsden Heights on the south, most of the Fair Mile on the north, and the whole of Friar Park on the west, where the new boundary extended almost to Hernes Farm (in Rotherfield Greys) and to Badgemore House. The borough became a successor parish in 1974, under local government reorganization; its boundaries were unaffected, and remained unaltered in 2001. (fn. 25)

Landscape and Geology

The ancient parish comprised a varied and undulating landscape, rising up the Chilterns dip slope from c. 35 m. by the river at Henley to over 120 m. in the north-west, towards Bix and Assendon. (fn. 26) The Chilterns foothills extended to the edge of the town itself, whose western suburbs, beyond the market place, rise steeply towards Friar Park. As across most of the Chilterns the underlying geology is chalk, overlain on the higher ground around Lambridge Wood and Henley park with patches of clay-with-flints, around Badgemore with river gravels, and along the Fair Mile and in the eastern parts of the town with river gravels and Coombe deposits. (fn. 27)

The Chilterns beechwoods, historically an important aspect of Henley's economy, extended into the parish's western edge, and in the 1870s still covered over 250 acres. Earlier the parish's woodland was more extensive, much of it lying north-west of the town around the medieval Henley park, where large areas were cleared in the later 17th century. Of the remaining land some (over 350 a. in the 1870s) was pasture, but from the Middle Ages the parish also contained extensive areas of arable, which in the 1840s comprised over 60 per cent of the total. (fn. 28) The overall picture was broadly similar in the late 17th century, when Jan Siberechts' painting of Henley from the Wargrave road showed a landscape of small inclosed fields divided by hedgerows and patches of woodland. Some were arable and others grass, with hills to the north-west clothed in more extensive swathes of denser woodland. (fn. 29)

Population

For much of its history Henley's size placed it among a broad run of small boroughs and market towns which, in Oxfordshire and neighbouring counties, included Abingdon, Witney, Thame, and Great Marlow. From the Middle Ages it generally ranked among the larger of such places, outstripped by substantially bigger centres such as Reading or Oxford, and occasionally by the likes of Abingdon, Thame or Witney, but consistently remaining more populous than towns such as Burford, Chipping Norton, Watlington, or Wallingford. Population trends were generally within the parameters expected for a town of this type, and only with marked suburban expansion in the late 19th century, as the town consolidated its position as a fashionable inland resort, did the population see pronounced and rapid growth, doubling to nearly 6,000 between 1801 and 1901. Even so that left it behind expanding towns such as Banbury, Maidenhead or Aylesbury, and in the 20th century growth was constrained both by limited industrialization and, increasingly, by planning restrictions. In 2001, with a population of under 11,000, Henley remained one of Oxfordshire's middling towns, similar to Thame, and substantially larger than Wallingford or Chipping Norton, but no longer comparable with major urban and industrial centres such as Banbury, Bicester, Witney or Abingdon. (fn. 30)

The early 14th-century town contained around 200–300 houses and a population of 1,000–1,500, judging from a list of pledgors (probably householders) drawn up c. 1296, fines in the manor court, and the probable number of burgage plots. This suggests that Henley was of above average size among contemporary small towns, comparable in Oxfordshire with Witney, Burford, and Thame, though smaller than Banbury. By then the town had been in existence for over a century, and appears to have still been expanding. (fn. 31)

Property charters and guild records suggest that plague mortality during 1348–9 could have been as high as 64 per cent, with a further fall of up to 29 per cent in the plague of 1361–2. If so, the population made a remarkably swift partial recovery. The 1377 poll tax noted 377 adults over 14 years old, implying a total population of perhaps 670–800, and c. 135–160 houses. Admissions of new burgesses confirm that the town was continuing to attract incomers, and town properties show no signs of long-term dilapidation or vacancy. (fn. 32) The period from the 1420s to 1490s, by contrast, appears to have seen some contraction in economic activity, and possibly in population. Even so, 15th-century houses on the town's western fringe (fronting Gravel Hill) suggest continued pressure on space and no serious contraction in the settled area, while the core of the town saw substantial rebuilding by some of the town's wealthier inhabitants. (fn. 33) By 1500, with the revival of the river-borne corn trade, the population was evidently rising, and by 1524 (when 191 Henley people paid the lay subsidy) it had probably again reached 1,000: substantially smaller than Reading, but larger than Wallingford or Oxfordshire towns such as Witney, Woodstock or Thame. (fn. 34) Welsh surnames recorded in the early 16th century suggest long-distance immigration from the west country, a phenomenon noted in some other Oxfordshire towns. Another incomer came from Kent, and others from places closer by. (fn. 35)

Thereafter Henley's continued success as an inland port and as a market (and later coaching) centre fuelled further growth. The 1641 protestation oath was signed by 718 Henley men, suggesting an adult population of over 1,400, and in the 1660s there were at least 250 houses excluding Greys Road and the southern side of Friday Street (still in Rotherfield Greys). (fn. 36) Periodic setbacks were caused by plague, with 109 plague deaths recorded in 1581–2, 61 in 1609, 9 in 1609, and 87 in 1625, followed by an unprecedented 474 deaths in 1664–5. That last outbreak may account for an apparent fall in population by 1676, when between 1,174 and 1,258 adults were noted in Henley, but the reversal was apparently temporary. (fn. 37) In 1731 the lord of Fawley estimated the town's population (not necessarily accurately) at 3,000 in 500 houses, and by 1771 the rector's estimate was 520 houses, with another 50-odd houses reported in the area south of Friday Street. (fn. 38) By 1801 the parish as a whole (including the outlying rural parts) contained 635 houses and a population of 2,948, while the urban area (by then extending into Rotherfield Greys) almost certainly had over 3,000 inhabitants: smaller than Abingdon, but slightly larger than Banbury, Witney or Thame. (fn. 39)

Within twenty years piecemeal building and immigration (chiefly from nearby rural parishes) had brought the parish's population to 3,509 in 696 houses, excluding the expanding areas south of Friday Street. Including those areas, total population by 1841 (the first year such figures become available) was 4,566 in 939 houses, nearly 200 of them in the developing southern suburbs. By then the rate of growth was slowing, as Henley entered a period of economic stagnation following the opening of the Great Western Railway in 1839–40, and the consequent loss of the town's coaching and river trades. A station was belatedly opened at Henley in 1857, but growth remained sluggish through the 1860s and 1870s. From the 1880s, however, with the growing popularity of the regatta and Henley's emergence as a fashionable resort, the population rose sharply, prompting renewed suburban expansion. By 1901 the borough had 5,984 inhabitants in 1,331 houses. (fn. 40)

Growth continued until the early 1920s when, despite further house building, the population fell from 6,836 in 1921 to 6,621 ten years later. Expansion resumed after the Second World War, with the population rising from 7,982 to 11,431 between 1951 and 1971, and the number of households from 2,509 to 3,960. A fall to 10,134 over the next twenty years was partially reversed in the 1990s, bringing the population to 10,646 (5,040 households) in 2001. (fn. 41)