The toponym Addingrove is derived from the Old English for "Æddi's wood".[2] From the 11th to the 15th centuries it evolved through the forms Eddingrave, Adegrave and Adingrave before reaching its present form.[3]
Walter Giffard's mesne lord was Hugh de Bolebec, whose heirs were the Earls of Oxford.[3] The mesne lordshire of Addingrove followed that of Whitchurch until 1635.[3]
By 1173 the sub-tenants of the Earls of Oxford were a family called Morel.[3] In 1257 John Morel granted parts of Oakley and Addingrove to John FitzNeil, who then bought the remainder of the manorial tenure from Morel's heirs.[3] Thereafter the tenancy of Addingrove was linked with that of Boarstall until 1563.[3] From 1554 the farm was let to John Croke of Chilton.[3] Croke left the tenancy to his son, also John Dormer, who in 1607 was renting the farm from Sir John Dormer of Dorton.[3] Dormer left Addingrove to his son Sir Robert Dormer, who is said to have passed it to a family called Mitchell.[3] In the 18th century Addingrove passed from Richard Mitchell to Sir John Aubrey, 6th Baronet.[3] Aubrey held the manor of Boarstall, so thereafter Addingrove was once again linked with that manor.[3]
After Addingrove was deserted, its land was divided amongst the villages of Oakley, Brill and Chilton.[citation needed]
Chapel
In about 1142 the Empress Maud granted Oakley church and its dependent chapelries of Brill, Boarstall and Addingrove, to the AugustinianPriory of St Frideswide, Oxford.[3] Addingrove chapel still existed in 1318.[3] Late in the 18th century Addingrove was still a hamlet in the parish of Oakley, but its chapel had been "suffered to fall to ruin".[4]
Hamlet
The possible site of the deserted medieval village and former chapel of Addingrove may be about 0.25 miles (400m) north of Addingrove Farm.[5] The only remaining building on the site is a derelict barn,[5] but Ordnance Survey maps of 1878 and 1885 show this as the site of the original Addingrove Farm.[5] Slight hollows suggest where a house may have stood, a slight baulk suggests the route of a former track, and ridge and furrow to the west, south and southeast suggest where the limits of the former settlement may have been.[5]
About 0.25 miles (400m) east of Addingrove Farm the B4011 road between Oakley and Long Crendon crosses a stream, next to which on the east side of the road is a rectilinear medieval ditch that the stream used to feed.[6] The ditch was about 23 feet (7m) wide and may have been a moat, but there is no trace of a manor house having stood within the rectangle.[6] It may therefore have been a fishpond.[6]
