The Huckin Home

The Huckin Home

Kingham, Oxfordshire, England

Church

From at least 1660 to 1844 the Huckin family occupied a house in Kingham. It was a farmhouse with stables and barns. That house stands today, albeit modified and extended. We visited Kingham in August, 2000, and obtained the photographs shown below.

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This is the parish church. It dates to the 1300s or earlier. The Huckin family worshipped here, and recorded births, marriages, deaths, and burials in the church records.

Older graves were relocated to the wall behind the church early in this century. At least the gravestones were. They are covered with foliage; we didn't have time to investigate further.

The oldest graves are in the front by the road. No Huckin graves were found.

The large burial ground seen here occupies ground previously taken by a school. The graveyard was extended in 1884 and 1920 to this area. Read more about Kingham Church.

Here is the front of "The Laurels." I exposed a roll at the wrong exposure (amateur mistake!), so this and the next shot are about 3 stops underexposed.

Not The Laurels, but another house down the street. It has a thatched roof similar to what The Laurels would have had last century.

The back of "The Laurels".

Looking out one of the windows it's easy to see how thick the stone walls are.

One of the out buildings. A homestead would have had a number of buildings surrounding the stockyard. These would include a granary (for grain), a barn (for hay), pigstyes - every house had a pigsty, stables, cowsheds, and perhaps a dairy or milking parlor. Many of these buildings were later converted into laborers' cottages.

House and out building from the rear.

The side wall (right side when viewing the house from the front).

Old wall.

Mrs. Lainchbury, current owner, pointing out architectural details.

These are not merestones, which marked the boundaries of the strips in the open fields; merestones are large, solid lumps of stone, standing on end. The stones in the photograph are the flat stones used for walling; they come from Sarsgrove Wood in Sarsdan where they are a geological phenomenon, and were used extensively in both Kingham and Churchill as an alternative to dry-stone walling.

Quoting now from Lainchbury, Kingham The Beloved Place (1957):
"THE LAURELS. Originally a thatched cottage with very thick walls. It was improved and re-roofed with blue slates by Richard Wiggall for Joshua Cook in the 1880s. In the barn at the back is carved on a coign S. W. 1837 and W. D. 1839. The yard, now an engineers yard, was a farmyard. The last sole farmer to have it as such was William Hooper who moved out in 1916 on its purchase by Caleb Lainchbury from W. A. Bull. Here lived the Huckin family, farmers for generations as we have read in the proceedings of the Court Baron on April 8th, 1836. It originally belonged to New College, John Huckin living here in 1850. Later owned by William Cook who died 1882. On the death of his widow in 1889 it passed into Chancery and was bought out by Joshua Cook in 1890, and on the death of his widow it went to his nephew W. A. Bull.
"If Anne Huckin lived here in 1662, as I believe she did, then the cottage was in a very bad state for she was allowed by New Colleg '3 Trees, to new build her house, this house alone is most out of repaire'. It has been my home since 1925."
And now it belongs to his son, Michael Lainchbury.
Lainchbury: "From another Court Baron held on April 8th, 1836.
"Afterwards at this Court came the said John Huckin the elder and prayed to be admitted to the said premises ---
"Also at this Court the Lords of the said Deputy Steward did grant unto John Huckin aged one year or thereabouts son of John Huckin who is now first in reversion the reversion of the said one messuage and one yardland with the appurtenances now in the possession of the said John Huckin his Grand Father to have the said one messuage and one yardland with the appurtenances unto him the said John Huckin for the term of his natural life immediately when by death surrender or forfeiture of the said John Huckin his Grand Father and of the said John Huckin his Father it shall happen to come into the hands of the Lords...
"Here we get a glimpse of a family holding their yardland, etc., from the Lords of the Manor, from father to son and so to grandson, for John Huckin had booked his at the age of one year! Again of interest to me is the fact that the Huckin family lived here, in this house where I write these words."

Read about the Kingham church
The Enclosure Award
See the Huckin descendancy
Send email to Steve Hall

This is the parish church. It dates to the 1300s or earlier. The Huckin family worshipped here, and recorded births, marriages, deaths, and burials in the church records.
Older graves were relocated to the wall behind the church early in this century. At least the gravestones were. They are covered with foliage; we didn't have time to investigate further.
The oldest graves are in the front by the road. No Huckin graves were found.
The large burial ground seen here occupies ground previously taken by a school. The graveyard was extended in 1884 and 1920 to this area. Read more about Kingham Church.
Here is the front of "The Laurels." I exposed a roll at the wrong exposure (amateur mistake!), so this and the next shot are about 3 stops underexposed.
Not The Laurels, but another house down the street. It has a thatched roof similar to what The Laurels would have had last century.
The back of "The Laurels".
Looking out one of the windows it's easy to see how thick the stone walls are.
One of the out buildings. A homestead would have had a number of buildings surrounding the stockyard. These would include a granary (for grain), a barn (for hay), pigstyes - every house had a pigsty, stables, cowsheds, and perhaps a dairy or milking parlor. Many of these buildings were later converted into laborers' cottages.
House and out building from the rear.
The side wall (right side when viewing the house from the front).
Old wall.
Mrs. Lainchbury, current owner, pointing out architectural details.
These are not merestones, which marked the boundaries of the strips in the open fields; merestones are large, solid lumps of stone, standing on end. The stones in the photograph are the flat stones used for walling; they come from Sarsgrove Wood in Sarsdan where they are a geological phenomenon, and were used extensively in both Kingham and Churchill as an alternative to dry-stone walling.