Berry Close is a 10 acre open space in the middle of Chacombe, a few miles from Banbury. The land was generously donated to the village as an amenity in the will of Mrs Eileen Bennett, in memory of her late husband, Tim. 

The land is owned by Chacombe Parish Council, but managed by a Trust, the Berry Close Charitable Trust. All residents of Chacombe are welcome to join the Trust as Friends. The Trust is administered by a committee of Trustees who are appointed by the membership.

You wait 15 years for a commemorative planting and then two come at once....

In February 2022 as the Queen's Platinum Jubilee arrived the Berry Close Trustees decided it would be appropriate to celebrate the event with a suitably impressive tree. For a discussion on the choices available see the Tree Management page. After some discussion, a Wild Cherry was chosen with a work party planned for the appropriate planting time, October. Sadly the Queen died in the September, so this tree has been planted both to celebrate her Jubilee, and to give thanks for her remarkable reign (see the plaque below).

Then in March 2023 HS2 Ltd offered communities near the route of the new line a tree for planting. We agreed it should commemorate the coronation of King Charles lll and chose an oak, the connection between Kings Charles and Oaks being too good to miss.

A short but enjoyable ceremony was held on the coronation weekend to unveil the two commemorative plaque, with Dr Stephen Large, BCCT's chairman from its foundation until last year, doing the honours before an appreciative audience.

Special Thanks to Felicity Vernon, Pauline Lawrence, Andrew Taylor and Neil Castle without whom none of this would have happened.

The Parish Council decided that the generous bequest of Berry Close to the village should be marked by a permanent structure.

The rural nature of the field determined that it should be something in keeping so, after many suggestions and abortive attempts at finding something, it was fortuitous that the Banbury Flood Alleviation Scheme was under construction! Having received an invitation to have a look at what was going on and not to miss an opportunity I soon spotted piles of huge rocks and surely we would be able to find something in there that would be just what we were looking for.

After a chat with Geoff Jones we returned to the site and as we disembarked from the 4x4 in our hivis waistcoats and hard hats it was almost the first large rock we saw but we carried on looking, as you do, thinking there will be something better but eventually went back to our first choice! How were we going to get this 2 ½ ton piece of local rock back to Chacombe let alone erect it?

The Environment Agency kindly offered to deliver it. It was washed and loaded and delivered to the field where it lay for several years. It was eventually erected in 2015 by Robert and Richard Tustian but before that, as a condition of the Planning Permission, there needed to be some archaeological excavation of the site and a Community Dig was led by Geoff Jones and Polyolbion Archaeology. More about the archaeology of Berry Close can be found on this website.

The scale of the excavation was very appropriate for the size of the hole needed to accommodate this huge stone! There was now another delay before the plaque was purchased and finally attached to the stone in 2017 by Charlie Johnson of DC Building Services. Sometimes the wheels of democracy move very slowly. We are very grateful to all the people and organisations who gave so willingly of their time and resources to make the commemorative stone and it’s plaque an appropriate reminder of the generous gift from Tim and Eileen Bennett.

Hopefully it will be there for many years to come

Although not specifically mentioned in Mrs Bennett's will, it was known that her intention was to give a small piece of the Close adjacent to the existing churchyard to serve as an extension burial ground. The bureaucratic obstacles to carrying out her wishes were immense, but a team led by the indefatigable Brian Moore succeeded in overcoming them. The result is an area to the north east of the old churchyard which has been laid out as both burial ground and memorial garden planted by volunteers. It is now formally owned by the Church and was consecrated as soon as Coronavirus restrictions allowed (see below). 

The burial ground planting takes shape

A (roughly) monthly timeline of the planting A huge thank you to the volunteer gardeners, Janet Jones, Pauline Laurence and Felicity Vernon (click on each image to enlarge):

Chacombe Archaeology by Geoff Jones

My mother-in-law, Betty Cameron, inspired me as an incomer in the 1970s but also inspired a number of others who were students of hers at Chacombe School in the 1960s to become interested in the past history and archaeology of Chacombe. Ian Williams, for example, was taught by her and researches Chacombe's early history from every aspect. I concentrate on archaeology. 

Betty was always fascinated by Berry Close and especially the 'mysterious' mound near the Church. In her early childhood in the 1920s she would play in the the ditch around the mound calling it The Secret Valley. From her I heard of the various and speculative origins for the mound that residents had suggested.

In the 1980s the government carried out a specialist survey of all known archaeological sites around the country. The conclusion for Berry Close was that the mound was probably a platform for a medieval manor house and that in much of the rest of Berry Close there were associated buildings. Recent archaeology has proved that they were quite correct about the mound. Surface undulations and a geophysical survey of the field suggests that they are likely to be right about associated buildings and trackways between them.

Also in the 1980s a resident of Silver Street and passionate amateur archaeologist, Joan Bowes, invited me to join her field walking to look for remains that could shed light on the past of Chacombe. This included looking at the site of Roman remains on a hill overlooking Chacombe and a possible bell-founding site on the field called Bell Land. We also found a long-abandoned dam, which just might be one of the elusive mill sites for Chacombe mentioned in the Domesday Book.

Joan and I went to see the then NCC County Archaeologist, Graham Cadman, around that time. He thought Berry Close was the most important un-excavated archaeological site in Northamtonshire. He took every opportunity to divert any air photography flight he was allowed to make to fly over Berry Close.

He was not alone in showing an archaeological interest in Berry Close. I saw Professor Mick Aston walking up Silver Street one day towards Berry Close during the period in which TimeTeam was in full flow on tv. Later, I was taken aback when I discovered that Dr. Ben Robinson, the Historic England Advisor for Sites at Risk and frequent tv presentor for various archaeological programmes, revealed to me that he knew Berry Close very well when I rang him and we had quite a discussion about the site.

Joan Bowes took the view that it was an absolute certainty that a Saxon settlement had existed in or near Chacombe village, but was very frustrated that there was not a shred of evidence even hinting at this. She died before the answer was revealed. In her view the mound was raised by the Bagley bell-founders of Chacombe, who operated in the 17th c., suggesting it was where they dug pits to cast large bells, some of which are still used in Chacombe church. We now know this is not correct and bell pits have been found behind Bell Cottage in Silver Street. 

Chacombe Archaeology Group

This is an informal group of interested people who are prepared to help at any archaeological dig in the Parish suitable for volunteer input. There have been two 'community digs' to date. The first in 2015 was for the 2 by 1 metres of ground that the commemorative stone occupies. The second was for the burial ground and memorial garden, with some investigation of the mound, both next to the church. We have been lucky to obtain help from a local professional archaeologist to lead them and write reports, Stephen Wass of Cropredy (Polyolbion Archaeology). I coordinated the volunteers for these digs.