Newbottle
means a new building. In 1086 Newbottle was known
as Niwebotle. Charlton
is a common name, usually meaning farmstead of
the freemen or peasants.
Newbottle
is a small collection of no more than seven houses next to the parish
church of St James, and Charlton is a hamlet with around 200 residences
and services, a short distance from Newbottle, that utilises St
James as its parish church. Charlton never had a church of its own
because it was divided into several estates with no single Lord
of the Manor. St James has primarily older graves surrounding it,
dating before the early 1900s, and Charlton has a more recent graveyard,
dating from 1903, on its outskirts. Also tied in with Newbottle
is Purston, an even smaller hamlet to the north consisting only
of a manor house and farm. Newbottle and Purston did once have larger
communities, but the Black Death took its toll, followed by the
enclosure of the arable fields to make sheep pastures in the late
14th and 15th centuries.
To
travel by road to Charlton and then to Newbottle, use the M40. Exit
east at Junction 10 on to the A43. Half a mile brings you to a roundabout,
and turn left there on to the B4100, signposted Aynho. After approximately
three miles turn right on to the B4031. After about half a mile,
turn left towards Charlton. To reach Newbottle, continue through
Charlton, passing the graveyard on the right, and then shortly look
for the turning on the left.
