24-598: John Philips (30 December 1676 – 15 February 1709) was an 18th-century English poet. Philips was born at Bampton , Oxfordshire , the son of Rev. Stephen Philips, later archdeacon of Salop , and his wife Mary Wood. He was at first taught by his father and then went to Winchester College . He suffered from delicate health but became a proficient classical scholar. He was treated with special indulgence because of his personal popularity and delicate health. He had long hair, and when others were at play, he liked to stay in his room reading Milton while someone combed his locks. He
48-421: A cruciform Norman church. It received Gothic additions from late in the 13th century to early in the 16th century. The architect Ewan Christian restored it in 1868–70. It is a Grade I listed building . In 1315 King Edward II granted Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke a licence to crenellate at Bampton. He had Bampton Castle built just west of Shill Brook. Much of the building survived until
72-602: A correct folio edition in February of that year. The Splendid Shilling , a burlesque in Miltonic blank verse , was described by Joseph Addison as "the finest burlesque poem in the English language". It depicted the miseries of a debtor without a shilling in his purse with which to buy tobacco, wine, food and clothes. As a result of this work Philips was introduced to Robert Harley and employed to write Blenheim (1705) as
96-682: A counterblast to Addison's celebration of the Battle of Blenheim in The Campaign . The piece imitates Milton's verse, and the warfare is similar to that of the Iliad or Aeniad. In 1706 Cerealia; an imitation of Milton was published by Thomas Bennet, the bookseller who issued Blenheim . This has been believed to be by Philips, but it was not included in the early editions of his works, and his authorship has been questioned. In January 1707-8 Fenton published in his Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems ,
120-422: A short "Bacchanalian Song" by Philips. In 1708 Philips issued Cyder , his chief work, which is an imitation of Virgil's Georgics . Tonson agreed to pay Philips forty guineas for it in two books, with ten guineas for a second edition. Philips also received one hundred large-paper copies, and two dedication copies bound in goatskin. He signed a receipt for the forty guineas and the books on 24 January 1707-8 and
144-601: A wool merchant, died leaving £100 to build and endow a free school in Bampton. This was built in Church View near the junction with Church Street, the first schoolmaster was appointed in 1650 and the building was completed in 1653. The building is now Bampton's public library. Bampton Town Hall was completed in 1838 and now houses Bampton Arts Centre. In 1861 the East Gloucestershire Railway
168-607: Is just east of Shill Brook, which flows south to join the River Thames , and just north of a smaller stream that flows west to join Shill Brook. The A4095 road passes through the village. The civil parish measures about 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles (5.6 km) north – south and about 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles (4 km) east – west. It is bounded to the south by the River Thames, to the east by Aston Ditch, and to
192-634: The Commonwealth of England in the 17th century, when the gatehouse and part of the curtain wall were adapted to form Ham Court. It is now a private house and a Grade II* listed building . After the Norman conquest of England , William the Conqueror granted the church of St Mary the Virgin to Leofric , Bishop of Exeter . The Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral have held the advowson of
216-519: The Old English bēam-tūn , which could mean either " tūn by the beam" or " tūn made from beams". Tūn is an Old English word that originally meant a fence, and came to mean an enclosure or homestead. The earliest parts of the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin are 10th- or 11th-century, when it was built as a late Saxon Minster . It was rebuilt in the 12th century as
240-511: The period drama television series Downton Abbey . The main ones included the Old Rectory (Churchgate House), the public library, the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, and houses in Church View that were used to represent two pubs. Edmund Smith (poet) Edmund Smith (1672–1710), born Edmund Neale , was a minor English poet in the early 18th century. He is little read today but Samuel Johnson included him in his Lives of
264-659: The 1790s. It used to be performed in Bampton on Whit Monday but the date has recently changed to the late May bank holiday. The town is also the home of Bampton Classical Opera which performs both in Bampton and elsewhere. Bampton Youth Centre was founded in 1984 in the former Victorian primary school building. Bampton Town Football Club is affiliated to the Oxfordshire Football Association and plays at Buckland Road, Bampton. The club has senior, youth, junior, and veteran teams. The Bampton & District Aunt Sally Association, formed in 1971, plays
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#1732793373734288-729: The Incomparable Mr Philips" with a dedication to St John. In 1713, William Diaper paid his tribute by including the episode of Pomona mourning Thyrsis near the beginning of his Dryades; or, the Nymphs Prophecy (1713). Bampton, Oxfordshire Bampton , also called Bampton-in-the-Bush , is a settlement and civil parish in the Thames Valley about 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles (7 km) southwest of Witney in Oxfordshire . The parish includes
312-427: The blank verse of Milton, which Philips imitated, "could not `be sustained by images which at most can rise only to elegance". Pope said that Philips succeeded extremely well in his imitation of Paradise Lost , but was quite wrong in endeavouring to imitate it on such a subject. Philip's minor productions include a clever Latin "Ode ad Henricum S John" written in acknowledgement of a present of wine and tobacco, which
336-416: The hamlet of Weald . The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,564. Bampton is variously referred to as both a town and a village. The Domesday Book recorded that it was a market town by 1086. It continued as such until the 1890s. It has both a town hall and a village hall . The core of the village is on gravel terraces formed of Summertown-Radley or flood plain terrace deposits. It
360-463: The monuments to Chaucer and Drayton , with the motto " Honos erit huic quoque pomo " from the title page of Cyder . In February 1710 Edmund Smith printed a "Poem to the Memory of Mr John Philips" which was later described by Samuel Johnson as "a poem, which justice must place among the best elegies which our language can shew". In the same year Leonard Welsted published "A Poem to the Memory of
384-477: The parish ever since. Late in the 11th or early in the 12th century the Dean and Chapter had a prebendal house built just west of the parish church. There is some 13th-century work on the east wing, and the house was altered and enlarged in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries. It is now called The Deanery and is a Grade II* listed building. Weald Manor is a manor house west of Shill Brook and south of Ham Court. It
408-492: The poem was published on the 29th (Daily Courant). It has some fine descriptive passages with an exact account of the culture of the apple tree and the manufacture of cider. It has many local allusions to Herefordshire , the County of his ancestors. Philip Miller the botanist told Johnson that "there were many books written on the same subject in prose which do not contain so much truth as that poem". Samuel Johnson objected that
432-522: The station and the East Gloucestershire Railway in 1962. Bampton is served by bus route 19, which is run by Pulhams Coaches and runs every hour between Carterton , Standlake and Witney Monday to Saturday daytimes. There is no Sunday or bank holiday service. Bampton has a tradition of Morris dancing which may be 600 years old. Documentary and circumstantial evidence show that Morris dancing in Bampton goes back at least to
456-494: The traditional throwing game Aunt Sally , which is played at pubs almost all of which are in Oxfordshire. Bampton Skatepark was built for the village's skateboarders and BMX riders. Bampton is one of the settings for the fictional crime novels The Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton , set in about 1366, by Mel Starr. ITV used Bampton for several outdoor locations for the fictional village of Downton, North Yorkshire in
480-462: The west and north by ditches and field boundaries. A small part of the airfield of RAF Brize Norton is in northernmost part of the parish. The Bampton area has been settled since the Iron Age and Roman periods. The Exeter Book of 1070 records the toponym as Bemtun . The Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Bentone . A charter or roll from 1212 records it as Bamtun . It is derived from
504-462: Was built in the 17th century and enlarged in 1742. It is a Grade II* listed building. South of St Mary's is Churchgate House, which used to be the Rectory . The oldest part of the house is 16th-century, with a datestone inscribed "1546 Vicar Joan Dotin". In 1799 a new Georgian main block was added to the front of the building by the builder and architect Daniel Harris . In 1635 Robert Veysey,
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#1732793373734528-589: Was built through the northernmost part of the parish, about 2 miles (3 km) north of the village. In 1873 a station was opened in Brize Norton parish. It was about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Brize Norton village and 2 miles (3 km) north of Bampton, but the station was named "Bampton". In 1937 RAF Brize Norton was established and in 1940 the Great Western Railway renamed the station Brize Norton and Bampton . British Railways closed
552-475: Was then at Christ Church, Oxford under Dean Aldred, where Edmund Smith was his greatest friend. He intended to become a physician, but devoted himself to literature instead. Philips was loath to publish his verse but his Splendid Shilling was included, without his consent, in a Collection of Poems published by David Brown and Benjamin Tooke in 1701. When another false copy appeared early in 1705, he printed
576-610: Was translated by Thomas Newcomb . Philips also contemplated a poem on the "Last Day", but his health grew worse. After a visit to Bath, Somerset he died aged 33 of tuberculosis at his mother's house in Hereford . Thomas Tickell in his Oxford (1707) had compared Philips with Milton, saying he "equals the poet, and excels the man". After the poet's death, a monument in his memory was erected in 1710 by Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt in Westminster Abbey , between
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