Ewelme, Oxfordshire - Almshouses, onion harvest - local postcard c.1980s

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Ewelme is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire, 2.5 miles (4 km) north-east of the market town of Wallingford. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 1,048.^[1]

To the east of the village is Cow Common and to the west, Benson Airfield, the north-eastern corner of which is within the parish boundary.

The solid geology is chalk overlying gault clay. The drift geology includes some gravel.

The toponym is derived from Ae-whylme, Old English for "waters whelming". It refers to the spring just north of the village, which forms the King's Pool that feeds the Ewelme Brook. The brook flows past Fifield Manor and then through nearby Benson before joining the River Thames. It formed the basis of Ewelme's watercress beds, which provided much local employment until well into the 20th century.^[2] Before inclosure in 1863, there was no clear boundary between the parishes of Ewelme, Benson and Berrick Salome where they shared large open fields.^[3] Ewelme Parish was within the Hundred of Benson in 1086,^[4] later renamed the Hundred of Ewelme.^[5]

William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of England, and his wife Alice de la Pole established the school and cloistered almshouses from their profits from the East Anglian wool trade^[6] in 1437. Alice was the daughter of Thomas Chaucer, Speaker of the House of Commons, and a granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. As lords of the manor, she and her father had both lived at Ewelme Palace which once stood in the village. The author Cynthia Harnett featured the school and church prominently in her children's novel The Writing on the Hearth. The action in the book is set around the time the school was built. Ewelme School is said to be the oldest school building in the UK still in use as a local authority school.^[7]

The almshouses are officially called "The Two Chaplains and Thirteen Poor Men of Ewelme in the County of Oxford". The thirteen almsmen have now been reduced to eight, but the building is still run as a charity by the Ewelme Trust.

Under King James I, the original purpose of the position of Master of Ewelme Hospital was diverted in 1617 to support the Regius Professorship of Physic at the University of Oxford; this was confirmed in 1628 by the attachment of the stipend to the chair.^[8] At the same time, the rectorship of Ewelme was made to support the same university's Regius Professor of Divinity, who then served as Rector of the parish.^[9]