Hanney was an ancient ecclesiastical parish about 3 miles (5 km) north of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse.
[1] Hanney was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire.
The name, first recorded as Hannige in a charter in 956, likely meant "island of the wild birds", with the first part being an Old English word hana.
[1] The church of St. Mary, Lyford was built in the Middle Ages as a dependent chapel.
[1] East Hanney had a dependent chapel of St. James by 1288 but it was dissolved in the 16th century.