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General
The name Quarrendon derives from the Old English words cweorn and dun and means ’mill hill’. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it is recorded as Querendone.
In the fields to the north of the village can be found the sites of two mediaeval villages, a ruined church and earthworks from the English Civil War. Quarrendon (the original village and not the modern housing estate) is said to have been the birthplace of St Edburga and St Edith, the daughters of the Anglo Saxon King Penda, and their niece St Osyth. Legend says that St Osyth was beheaded at the holy well in Quarrendon by Danish invaders.
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Quarrendon Fields
Back in 1988 the fields to the north of Quarrendon were nothing but a waste land where rubbish was dumped and people walked their dogs. Late one evening two men, Richard and John, were walking across the area taking John’s German Shepherd dog Sheba for a walk. At 10-15pm Sheba, who like all dogs was well ahead of its master, suddenly came racing back and went flying past the two men. She was obviously spooked and the two men turned to see what it was that had frightened her. Ahead they could see what at first looked like a horse but as they approached it they saw that it was only a partly a horse. The creature they saw had the upper torso of a man attached to the body of a horse, it was a centaur. Both men fled the area until they reached Meadowcroft Road when they looked back and saw the creature looking at them from a high vantage point. As they watched it turned and rapidly disappeared.
So what was the creature? Some believe it may have been the ghost of a soldier slumped around the neck of his horse as there are believed to be Civil War earthworks nearby. Others believe it was actually a centaur.
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