Origin of Dancers Hill

Sun 5 Sep 2021, 23:05

On page 15 of A History of Charlbury by Lois Hey is a map of Charlbury in medieval times.  It shows “Dance’s Hill” almost opposite Wood Lane, long before Mr Dancer arrived here. The first part of the road from the Playing Close is called Back Lane.

Sun 5 Sep 2021, 21:21

The field where Sandford Park houses were built was the tobogganing field used by all the local children

Sun 5 Sep 2021, 20:41

What always intrigues me about Dancer's Hill is Sledge's Rest at the bottom. There's a story there, I'm sure!

Thu 2 Sep 2021, 19:46

https://www.charlbury.info/news/archive/2021/4

Thu 2 Sep 2021, 19:20

Janet - how do you access that museum posting?

Thu 2 Sep 2021, 17:39

See the Museum's web posting on 30 April 2021 by Barbara Allison, re the contents of the old card index in the museum.

Thu 2 Sep 2021, 08:51

I spent my childhood in Knaves Knoll ,we moved there in 1945 & yes it did have a cellar but it was quite small & a devil of a job to get down to it because the entrance was a lift up hatch which was in the kitchen floor,the house was quite tiny & only had two rooms down stairs.

but my mother managed to have her grand piano in the living room.

i cant say i enjoyed living there because my mother & father did not get on very much........Chris Wastie

Wed 1 Sep 2021, 19:48

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere in the last year - I think in the very useful Charlbury Museum updates - that Dancer was simply the name of the bloke who lived at the big house, therefore it became known as Dancer's Hill.  Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing.

Wed 1 Sep 2021, 17:40

Well it's been six years since the last post, so any new info anyone? 

What's this business about keeping delinquents in the blindhouse? 

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 18:41

Caroline Pumphrey's book, Charlbury of our Childhood (Sessions of York) p.38 mentions Knaves Knoll briefly: "When Uncle built Hazeldean, no new house had been put up since the New Cottages (Wellington Terrace) 50 years before. Certain very poor cottages that were extant then have long since vanished and what was then Knaves Knoll is now Mount Pleasant. As a further indication of improvement, the old Workhouse has long been used as a barn, and the Blind House (windowless) where delinquents were imprisoned in cold and darkness temporarily is now used for the fire-engine."

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 17:13 (last edited on Tue 7 Oct 2014, 17:14)

Maybe others will know more (especially the museum team?) but I wonder how old the name Dancers/Dancer's Hill is anyway - I've found it on the 1881 census (with the apostrophe), but not earlier so far - Knave's Knoll (sic), though, is listed in the 1841 census, and of course we know the building dates back further. Need to look at older maps, I guess. (As a side note, 1841 also has 'Hickes Wood', fitting with the report on the etymology of 'Hixet' in the September Charlbury Chronicle.)

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 15:49

It's worth noting that the first usage of the street name doesn't have to be contemporaneous with any use as a gibbet. Placenames are often tinged with folk memory and half- or mis-remembered associations.

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 12:03

Mark, you're right in that capital crimes would have been heard at Assizes, but executions weren't always carried out at, say, Oxford Prison. Executions, certainly up to the early eighteenth century (Andrew!), could be ordered to take place near the victim's home or village, and so if murders had taken place in or around Charlbury, then it's possible that an execution would have taken place on Dancers Hill, or the body of the offender might have been brought back after hanging to be gibbeted as a warning to other people not to copy them (there's the Gibbet Tree just outside Shipton under Wychwood where this is said to have happened, for example).

I can't be sure that Charlbury's Dancers Hill originates from the 'dance' of the hanged, although where I used to live in Hertfordshire, there was both a Gallows Hill and a Dancers Hill close by!

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 11:53

Thank you everyone for the continuing feedback both on this site and in The Three Horseshoes last night. I can see Jackson's Oxford Journal will keep me 'ungainfully' occupied on many a winter's evening.
I'm beginning to think that the Knaves Knoll connection is a 'red herring' bearing in mind the dates of the current building. There may of course have been a previous structure there or it may have originally referred to part of the landscape.
Putting that aside, it is actually the medieval period that interests my contact so I will forward the link to British History.

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 10:40

The Victoria County History says that there was a gallows provided by the Abbot of Eynsham in Charlbury in the 13th and 14th centuries - see www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63798 - but it remains a large leap to the 18th century. (English Heritage's records date Knaves Knoll to the mid/late 17th century, by the way.)

Tue 7 Oct 2014, 10:15

Can this really be true? There were large numbers of capital crimes as recently as the eighteenth century, but magistrates did not have the power to hand down a death sentence. A Charlbury man or woman on trial for capital crime would have been sent for trial at the Assizes in Oxford or Banbury, and if convicted by the jury would have been condemned by the judge. The ensuing execution would have happened in the same place as the trial. I'm willing to be convinced if anyone can point me to a reliable primary source that folk were hanged in Charlbury, but my guess is that the etymology of Dancers Hill will prove to be much more innocuous. The story about gibbets sounds exactly like the sort of gothic yarn that your pick up in the - or from the postman!

Sun 5 Oct 2014, 20:15

Thank you for that Richard. If anyone has anything else it would be much appreciated.

Sun 5 Oct 2014, 18:33

'Mount Pleasant' is a giveaway - that's another placename traditionally associated with a gallows. I'd guess there must be a three-figure number of them around Britain.

Sun 5 Oct 2014, 09:39 (last edited on Sun 5 Oct 2014, 09:40)

When we moved here some 22 years ago we were told by the postman that the name Dancers Hill originated from there having once been a gibbet at the top. In addition condemned persons were said to have been kept in the cellar at the house called Knaves Knoll about half way up the hill.
I have been asked by someone researching other references to 'dancers' in this context as to whether there is any evidence other than hearsay for this being the case. Does anyone have any information to back this up?