Wick Farm: Well House
Wick Farm, near Barton, was already in existence in the thirteenth century. Its name suggests that it was probably a dairy farm: Stow Surv. 171 (1598): "In diuers countries, Dayrie houses or cottages, wherein they make butter and cheese, are vsually called Wickes.")
In the seventeenth century Wick Farm was the second largest farm in the parish of Headington. On 17 November 1781, when it was available to let, an advertisement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal stated it was then about 250 acres. The present farmhouse dates from the eighteenth century.
The above picture, taken in 1999, shows the farm’s impressive well house, which dates from about 1660. Over the doorway is a lion mask, and a scroll pediment on brackets. Inside there are steps down to the well, which is now covered. The postcard below shows the well-house in about 1918.
Farms needed vast quantities of water, and a well house held machinery (such as a donkey wheel or horse gin) for raising it.
The well house is the only Headington building other than St Andrew’s Church and Headington Hill Hall to have a Grade II* listing (SP50NE 5/3).
The following parts of Wick Farm are Grade II listed:
- Farmhouse (SP50NE 5/1)
- Barn (SP50NE 5/2)
- E. gate piers (SP50NE 5/4)
- W. gate piers (SP50NE 5/5)
Above: Well house and Wick Farmhouse
Wick Farm
Arthur Maling, one of James Murray’s assistants on the original Oxford English Dictionary project, annotated a slip for wick (in the sense meaning "farm") with the comment that "Headington Wick is a farm-house between Headington & Elsfield".