Population 135 (2011 Census) Civil parish Goosey Shire county Oxfordshire | OS grid reference SU3591 District Vale of White Horse Region South East | |
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Goosey is a village and civil parish about 4.5 miles (7 km) northwest of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse. Goosey was part of Berkshire until 1974, when the Vale of White Horse was transferred to Oxfordshire.
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Toponym
Goosey's toponym has evolved from the forms Gosie, Gosi and Goseig used in the 11th century, through Goseya in the 12th century and Gossehay in the 16th century before reaching its current form.
Manor
King Offa of Mercia is recorded as having given the Manor of Goosey to Abingdon Abbey in the 8th century AD in exchange for Andresey, an island adjacent to the abbey. In the 11th century the manor was assessed during reign of King Edward the Confessor (1042–66) as being 17 hides and worth £9; and then in the Domesday Book of 1086 as being 11 hides and worth £10. The abbey continued to hold the manor until 1538, when in the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was forced to surrender all its estates to the Crown.
In 1544 Henry Norris of Rycote and his wife Margery obtained a grant of the manor in fee. Goosey remained in the Norris family until Henry Norris' grandson Francis Norris, 1st Earl of Berkshire sold it in 1608. Goosey then passed through the Tawyer, Matthews and Saxton families until the early 19th century, when Sir Charles Saxton left it to his niece Mary, the wife of Admiral Robert Dudley Oliver. The Oliver family still held the manor in the 1920s.
Parish church
The Church of England parish church of All Saints has an Early English nave that was built in the 13th century. The present chancel is a late 16th century Tudor addition. The church has a king post roof. The vestry on the north side of the church and the bell-turret on the nave gable were added in the 19th century. All Saints' is a chapelry of the parish of St Denys, Stanford in the Vale. All Saints' building is Grade II* listed.