SPARSHOLT

Sparsholt is a small quiet springline village on the northern edge of the Berkshire Downs.

The village church, the Church of the Holy Rood (Holy Cross) seems a large church for this village. It dates from an almost complete rebuilding in the late 13th & early 14th century when the chancel and the two transepts were added and the tower heightened, although there has been a church on this site since before the Norman conquest. For the history and full information about the Church of the Holy Rood click here.

One of the stones forming the jamb of the priest's door has an interesting roughly cut design for the game of Nine Men's Morris, probably inscribed before the stone was built into the wall. Nine-Men's Morris' was a popular medieval game between two players who move their nine counters or men in turn on the points of meeting or crossing of the lines with the object of getting three men in a line together which permits the removal of one of the opponent's adjacent men. When a player is reduced to two men his opponent has won the game.

Sparsholt is just north of the B4507 Wantage to Ashbury road, about three miles west of Wantage.