Coggs / Cogges

"COGGS, (or Cogges), a parish in the hundred of Wootton, in the county of Oxford, 1 mile E. of Witney, its post town. It is situated on the river Windrush. A black priory was founded here, A.D. 1160, as a cell to Fescamp, in Normandy. After the Conquest the manor was held by the Arsics, and passed from them to the Greys, of Rotherfield. In James I.'s time it was possessed by the earls of Downe, whose seat is now a farmhouse. The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Oxford, value £64, in the patronage of Eton College. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a small Gothic structure, and contains monuments of the Blake family. The charities amount to £96 per annum. Here is a parochial school, and the Wesleyans have a chapel." [The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]