Nettlebed

Nettlebed is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills about 4.5mi northwest of Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire and 6mi southeast of Wallingford. The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 727.HistoryArchaeological finds show that the area around Nettlebed has been inhabited since Palaeolithic times.The place-name 'Nettlebed' is first attested in Inquisitiones post mortem of 1252, where it appears as Netelbedde. The name does mean 'nettle-bed', a place overgrown with nettles.The site was frequently travelled through since ancient times, being a pass through the Chiltern Hills used by the road between Oxford and Henley. The road between Henley and Wallingford was made into a turnpike in 1736 and ceased to be a turnpike in 1873. It is now classified the A4130.The Church of England parish of Saint Bartholomew was originally a chapelry of the adjacent parish of Benson. There is a record of the Empress Matilda giving the benefice of Benson, including chapels at Nettlebed and Warborough, to the Augustinian Abbey at nearby Dorchester, Oxfordshire in about AD 1140. The Mediaeval church building was replaced in 1845–46 by the present building, designed by a member of the Hakewill family of architects. The bell tower has a ring of six bells, all cast by Charles and George Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1846.