Boddington, Northamptonshire

Boddington
St. John the Baptist parish church, Upper Boddington
Boddington Boddington shown within Northamptonshire
Population	700 (2011)
OS grid reference	SP4752
• London	67 miles (108 km)
Civil parish	Boddington
District	South Northamptonshire
Shire county	Northamptonshire
Region	East Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Daventry
Postcode district	NN11
Dialling code	01327
Police	Northamptonshire
Fire	Northamptonshire
Ambulance	East Midlands
EU Parliament	East Midlands
UK Parliament	Daventry
Website	The Boddingtons
List of places UK England Northamptonshire 52°10′08″N 1°18′25″W / 52.169°N 1.307°W / 52.169; -1.307Coordinates: 52°10′08″N 1°18′25″W / 52.169°N 1.307°W / 52.169; -1.307

Boddington is a civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England, about 5 miles (8 km) north-east of Banbury off the A361 road.

The parish includes the villages of Upper Boddington and Lower Boddington. Upper Boddington is the larger of the two, on a hill close to the boundary between Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, with Lower Boddington on the southern slope of the hill. Nearby Boddington Reservoir is used for sailing and recreational fishing.

According to the 2001 census it had a population of 700, 240 male, 252 female in 196 households (2010 estimate 722, 280 in Lower Boddington and 442 in upper Boddington).

Boddington was almost certainly founded in Anglo-Saxon times. The spelling of Boddington has changed over the centuries. In the Domesday Book it is given as Botendon. A survey of Northamptonshire from the 12th century gives the name as Bottelendon, while The Calendar of Close Rolls from 1244 states the name as Budinton. Documents from 1358, 1396 and 1428 give the names as Botyngdon, Botyndoun and Botyngdon respectively. Some 19th-century maps name the parish Bodington, with only one "d". Ideas concerning the origin of the name vary greatly; the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names says that it is derived from "The hill of a man called Bota".

The two villages of Upper and Lower Boddington may have been separate in their early history, but were officially merged into a single parish by an Act of Parliament in 1758. The population of the village can be traced back through the national censuses as far back as 1801. In the 19th century, the population appears to have fluctuated considerably, rising from 476 in 1801 to 926 in 1851, then declining to 487 by 1901. The 2001 census gives the population of the parish as 700.