Wantage should not be confused with Wantagh, New York.
| Official Name: | Wantage |
| Static Image Name: | Wantage Market Place.jpg |
| Static Image Caption: | Wantage Market Place with its statue of King Alfred the Great, born in Wantage |
| Coordinates: | 51.589°N -1.427°W |
| Label Position: | top |
| Os Grid Reference: | SU3987 |
| London Distance: | 57miles |
| Population: | 13,106 |
| Population Ref: | (2021 Census)[1] |
| Civil Parish: | Wantage |
| Shire District: | Vale of White Horse |
| Shire County: | Oxfordshire |
| Region: | South East England |
| Country: | England |
| Post Town: | Wantage |
| Postcode District: | OX12 |
| Postcode Area: | OX |
| Dial Code: | 01235 |
| Constituency Westminster: | Didcot and Wantage |
| Website: | Wantage.com Gateway to Wantage |
Wantage is a historic market town and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of Oxfordshire since 1974. The town is on Letcombe Brook, 8miles south-west of Abingdon, north-west of Reading, 15miles south-west of Oxford and north-west of Newbury.
It was the birthplace of King Alfred the Great in 849.[2]
Wantage was a small Roman settlement[3] but the origin of the toponym is somewhat uncertain. It is generally thought to be from an Old English phrase meaning "decreasing river". King Alfred the Great was born at the royal palace there in the 9th century, in what was originally known as Wanating.[4] Wantage appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. Its value was £61 and it was in the king's ownership until Richard I passed it to the Earl of Albemarle in 1190. Weekly trading rights were first granted to the town by Henry III in 1246. Markets are now held twice weekly on Wednesdays and Saturdays.[5] Royalist troops were stationed in Wantage during the English Civil War.
In the 19th century, Lord Wantage became a notable local and national benefactor.[6] He was very involved in founding the British Red Cross Society. In 1877 he paid for a marble statue of King Alfred by Count Gleichen to be erected in Wantage market place, where it still stands today. He also donated the Victoria Cross Gallery to the town. This contained paintings by Louis William Desanges depicting deeds which led to the award of a number of VCs, including his own gained during the Crimean War. It is now a shopping arcade. Wantage is home to the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin, founded by the vicar of Wantage William John Butler in 1848; it was once one of the largest communities of Anglican nuns in the world. Wantage once had two breweries which were taken over by Morlands of Abingdon. In 1988 the town was thrust into the headlines after a Brass Tacks programme entitled "Shire Wars" exposed the drunken violence that plagued the town and surrounding villages at that time.[7]
Wantage Town Council consists of 16 councillors, all of whom (as of the May 2023 elections) are Liberal Democrats. The parish forms part of the district of the Vale of White Horse.
Until 1974, Wantage had two local government councils: Wantage Rural District, which had its headquarters in Belmont,[8] Wantage and Wantage Urban District, which had its headquarters in Portway.[9] These bodies were both abolished as part of the Local Government Act 1972 and became part of the Vale of White Horse District Council. It was at this point that Wantage was transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire.
Wantage is part of the Didcot and Wantage constituency which is currently represented in the House of Commons by Liberal Democrat MP Olly Glover who was first elected in the 2024 general election.[10] The constituency was first contested at the 2024 general election after the former Wantage constituency was abolished following the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies.[11]
Wantage is at the foot of the Berkshire Downs escarpment in the Vale of the White Horse. There are gallops at Black Bushes and nearby villages with racing stables at East Hendred, Letcombe Bassett, Lockinge and Uffington. Wantage includes the suburbs of Belmont to the west and Charlton to the east. Grove to the north is still just about detached and is a separate parish. Wantage parish stretches from the northern edge of its housing up onto the Downs in the south, covering Chain Hill, Edge Hill, Wantage Down, Furzewick Down and Lattin Down. The Edgehill Springs rise between Manor Road and Spike Lodge Farms and the Letcombe Brook flows through the town. Wantage is home to the Vale and Downland Museum. There is a large market square containing a statue of King Alfred, surrounded by shops some with 18th-century facades. Quieter streets radiate from it, including one towards the large Church of England parish church. Wantage is the "Alfredston" of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.[12]
Wantage is at the crossing of the B4507 valley road, the A417 road between Streatley and Cirencester, the A338 road between Hungerford (and junction 14 of the M4 motorway) and Oxford, and the B4494 road to Newbury.[13]
Wantage is well connected by bus services linking the town with Oxford and other nearby towns and villages.[14] Stagecoach West run the S9 service up to every 20 minutes between Oxford, Cumnor and Wantage.[15] Oxford Bus Company run the cityX1 service up to every 30 minutes between Oxford, Abingdon and Wantage.[16] Thames Travel run the connector X35 service up to every hour between Didcot, Harwell Campus and Wantage, the connector X36 service up to every 30 minutes between Didcot, Milton Park and Wantage Monday to Saturday daytimes (Extends to Harwell Campus on weekdays only, between the X35 & X36, every 20 minutes between Wantage and Harwell Campus weekdays), and the 67 service up to every hour between Wantage, Stanford in the Vale and Faringdon,[17] [18] [19] and Pulhams Coaches run the 68 service 2-4 times a day between Wantage, Uffington and Faringdon.[20] There are up to seven buses per hour operating between Wantage and Oxford, and up to four buses per hour operating between Wantage and Didcot. Night buses NS9 and cityNX1 also operate on Friday and Saturday evenings, providing late night services between Wantage, Abingdon and Oxford.[21]
Wantage does not have a railway station; Didcot Parkway, 8 miles to the east, is the nearest station, with services towards Reading, Oxford, London, Bristol and Cheltenham. The Great Western Main Line is just north of Grove (2 miles north of Wantage) where the former Wantage Road railway station used to be. It was closed during the Beeching cuts in 1964.[22] The Wantage Tramway used to link Wantage with Wantage Road station. The tramway's Wantage terminus was in Mill Street and its building survives, but little trace remains of the route.[23] One of the tramway's locomotives, Shannon, alias Jane, is preserved at Didcot Railway Centre.[24] Oxfordshire County Council have ambitions to open a railway station on the former Wantage Road site.[25] In 2018 a feasibility study was carried out for a new Wantage & Grove Parkway station with the hope that the proposed station could be served by a new service operating between Bristol and Oxford.[26] The proposed station received backing from Network Rail in 2021 after a new Oxfordshire rail study was published, which recommended a new station at Wantage/Grove, subject to additional main line infrastructure.[27]
The nearest public airport to Wantage is London Heathrow, approximately east of the town.[28]
A section of the Wilts & Berks Canal passes through the parish.[29]
There is one state secondary school in Wantage, King Alfred's Academy, and approximately ten primary schools.[30] The secondary school converted into an academy in 2011 and was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in that year.[31] [32]
Between 1873 and 2006, an Anglican private girls' school, St Mary's School, was located in Wantage. The school closed in 2006 when St. Mary's merged with Heathfield School, Ascot.[33] A former independent preparatory school, St Andrew's, established in 1926, closed permanently in 2010.[34]
Fitzwaryn School, a school catering for children with special needs aged 3–19, is situated in Wantage.[35] The school was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in 2014.[36] It is named after the ancient lords of the manor of Wantage, the FitzWarin family, powerful Marcher Lords seated at Whittington Castle in Shropshire.
In October 2013, the Vale Academy Trust was created when King Alfred's Academy, Charlton Primary School and Wantage CE Primary School came together to form a partnership.[37] The trust was founded by local heads, governors and other stakeholders in the hope of creating quality partnerships among the schools to ensure higher quality education for the area.[38] Since the trust was formed in 2013, three other primary schools in the area have joined.[39] The Vale Academy Trust announced plans in September 2016 to build a brand new free school in Grove for children from the ages of two to sixteen. The school is planned to have a capacity of up to 1,000 students and hoped to open in 2019 in preparation for large scale housing developments that are planned for Wantage and Grove but has not yet been built (March 2021).[40]
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC South and ITV Meridian. Television signals are received from the Oxford TV transmitter.[41]
Wantage's local radio stations are BBC Radio Oxford on 95.2 FM, Heart South on 102.6 FM and Jack FM on 106.4 FM.
Local newspapers are the Wantage & Grove Herald[42]