Pusey is a village and civil parish 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse district in Oxfordshire, England. It was historically part of Berkshire. The village is just south of the A420 and the parish covers about 1,000 acres (400 ha).

Pusey
Pusey is located in Oxfordshire
Pusey
Pusey
Location within Oxfordshire
Population55 (2001 census)[1]
OS grid referenceSU3596
Civil parish
  • Pusey
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townFaringdon
Postcode districtSN7
PoliceThames Valley
FireOxfordshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Oxfordshire
51°40′01″N 1°28′59″W / 51.667°N 1.483°W / 51.667; -1.483

History

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Pusey seems to be a Saxon settlement. Its toponym is derived from the Old English pise ēg, meaning "pea island".[2] The Domesday Book of 1086 records the village as Pesei. The Pusey family held the manor of Pusey from Saxon times. There is a tradition that it was granted to the family by Cnut the Great, by the delivery of a horn (an Anglo-Saxon form of land tenure known as "cornage"). The Pusey Horn is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.[3] In Anglo-saxon an inscription on the horn reads: "Kyng Knowde geue Wyllyam Pewte thys horne to holde by thy land" ("King Canute gave William Pusey this horn to hold by [it] the land")

In 1753, the family built Pusey House (not to be confused with Pusey House, Oxford), a Grade II* listed country house. It was designed by John Sanderson for John Allen Pusey. Edward Bouverie Pusey, English churchman and Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, was born there in 1800. The Church of England parish church of All Saints was rebuilt in 1745–50 by John Allen Pusey, at his own expense.[4] The south transept monument was built by Peter Scheemakers in memory of John Allen Pusey and his wife Jane.[5]

 
Pusey House

References

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  1. ^ "Area selected: Vale of White Horse (Non-Metropolitan District)". Neighbourhood Statistics: Full Dataset View. Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 22 June 2011. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
  2. ^ Mills & Room, 2003, page not cited
  3. ^ Victoria and Albert Museum: The Pusey Horn
  4. ^ Pevsner, 1966, page 195
  5. ^ "Pusey House". Royal Berkshire History.

Sources and further reading

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