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The latest news from the
Oxfordshire Local History Association (OLHA)
July 2022
(Above) First World War medals (the Military Cross, War Medal, and Victory Medal) awarded to Lt Col Charles Wallington of Summertown, Oxford. Read his story in the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum’s ‘The Man Behind the Medals’ blog.

All members of local history societies and groups that are members of OLHA are themselves members of OLHA automatically, and this e-bulletin is for everyone. Hence, if you are on the committee of a local history group or society, please make sure that this e-bulletin is forwarded to all your members by sending them this url. Thank you.
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Oxfordshire Past will this year take place at Banbury Museum and Gallery on Saturday 9 July, with many stalls and a programme of short talks providing an overview of work and research carried out in the county over the last year. This is an enjoyable annual event for anyone interested in local history, buildings and archaeology.

Further details and full programme here.
The Council for British Archaeology’s annual Festival of Archaeology runs from 16 to 31 July and several venues in Oxfordshire are taking part.

Find out what’s happening locally here.
Historian and broadcaster Michael Wood will give an illustrated talk on The Story of England: Kibworth Revisited, at Merton College, Oxford, on Monday 26 September, in support of the Oxfordshire Victoria County History (VCH). Tickets are £15 including a glass of wine.

Further details and booking here.
And a reminder of events already advertised in previous bulletins...
Oxford’s annual Alice’s Day on Saturday 2 July commemorates the boat trip in 1862 when the story of ‘Alice’ was first told by the Christ Church don ‘Lewis Carroll’. Most events are for children, but the Lewis Carroll Society’s free talks are aimed at adults, and will be held in St Frideswide’s Church, Osney (which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year). Topics include Lewis Carroll, Alice and the monarchy (with Oxford historian and author Mark Davies); and St Frideswide, Oxford’s patron saint (with author Jackie Holderness).

Mark Davies will also lead two guided riverside walks on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 July; the latter will tie in with events at Binsey Church, home of ‘The Treacle Well’.

Further information and booking here.
During the Second World War, Coleshill House near Faringdon was the training headquarters for the Auxiliary Units, the secret British Resistance which would have swung into action in the event of a German invasion. The house was destroyed by fire in  the 1950s but the Auxiliers’ operational base, the model farm and the watermill can be visited from 10am to 4pm on Sundays 10 July, 14 August, 11 September and 9 October 2022.

The 11 September event will be a special heritage day when all the components of the estate will be open and augmented with a programme of short talks, activity workshops and re-enactments.

The Coleshill estate is open for country walks all year, as is the tea room.
The Shelswell History Festival, a celebration of rural life past and present, will be on Saturday 16 July, 10am – 6pm, at Elms Farm, Newton Purcell, near Bicester. The theme is Trade and Transport and attractions include re-enactor groups; Morris dancers; a pipe band; history groups (including Bicester Local History Society, Buckingham Canal Society, the Veteran Cycle Club, Buckinghamshire Railway Museum, the National Paralympic Heritage Trust, St Edburg’s Heritage, and the Shelswell Group of villages - their Historic Trades and Transport); vintage, veteran and classic cars and vehicles; craft stalls; and children’s activities. Free admission; refreshments available.

Further details here.
The remarkable mosaic floor at North Leigh Roman Villa will be open to visitors on the following days over the summer: 23 July, 24 July, 10 August, 20 August, 21 August, 17 September and 18 September, 11am - 5pm.

Further information here.
The first Berkshire Heritage On-line Fair will take place on Saturday 6 August, hosted by the Berkshire Local History Association and the Berkshire Family History Society. The fair will cover Berkshire both before and after the 1974 boundary changes, so will be of interest to some areas which are now in Oxfordshire.

Further details here.

The exhibition Children and Military Lives - Stories of Adventure, Family, and Exile at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock until 24 November. With a focus on Oxfordshire people, the exhibition explores the experiences of children of serving military personnel, and of children who have been directly affected by conflict, both in the past and the present.

Further details here.

As reported in previous e-bulletins, the British Association for Local History (BALH) has teamed up with Pharos Tutors to offer short topic-based on-line courses on a variety of local and family history subjects.

Forthcoming courses (from July) include Discovering Your British Family and Local Community in the Early 20th Century; Recording the Poor - From Parish to Workhouse and Beyond; and First Steps to a One-Place Study. Most courses last 4 or 5 weeks and are reasonably at around £60.

Further information and booking here.
Looking for speakers for your group’s 2022/23 programme? OLHA’s substantial directory of speakers and tour guides is often updated, and shows which speakers are able to deliver their illustrated talks via Zoom or similar on-line platform.
Ian Wheeler is the author of Fair Mile Hospital: a Victorian Asylum but claims few formal credentials as an academic historian. He thinks of himself as a ‘history Womble’, with an interest in preserving local knowledge, anecdote, tall and amusing stories and the memories of colourful characters. His current project is the creation of a digital archive for his native village of Cholsey (near Wallingford), as a memorial to the lives of the generations of ordinary folk who are regularly overlooked by the chroniclers of dates, kings, battles, self-serving ambition and endless political upheaval. We all deserve some light relief, after all.

Find out about Ian’s talks, and how to contact him, here.
Marriage affidavit and bond, 1705.

Staff at the Oxfordshire History Centre (OHC) have begun a new project to repackage the thousands of archdeaconry marriage bonds and affidavits in their care. Currently the records are tightly bound into volumes, making them difficult to use or copy. Taking the bindings apart to store the bonds in acid free folders within boxes will make them much better protected, easier to use, and take up less space on the shelves.

Read more about the project and other latest news from OHC here.
The Bliss tweed mill at Chipping Norton, built 1873.

New draft texts on Chipping Norton and Over Norton have recently been added to the Oxfordshire Victoria County History (VCH) website, as part of the VCH’s ongoing work on the area. More sections will be added over the next few months, and comments and additional information are welcome. The final publication (planned for late 2024) will include several other surrounding villages, of which draft histories are also on the website.
A call for help with OLHA’s journal

Vanessa Moir, new editor of Oxfordshire Local History, writes: “I’m looking for people to join an editorial board whose main purpose will be to support me as editor in assessing submitted articles. Members of the board will review articles in their field of knowledge, or suggest others in the Oxfordshire local history community who could do so. The aim is for the journal to be published annually, with three to five articles per issue, so the workload for individual members of the board should not be too onerous.”

Please contact Vanessa to discuss this interesting opportunity.
Cruck cottage in Long Wittenham, South Oxfordshire.

The Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society (OAHS)’s Listed Buildings Sub Committee is looking for a new caseworker to cover the western part of South Oxfordshire. OAHS caseworkers review planning applications affecting listed buildings and, if necessary, draft letters of comment to be sent to the local planning authority. This is an interesting voluntary job which requires some knowledge of architectural history and of the local area.

For an informal chat about the role, contact the sub committee’s chairman David Clark.
The former City of Oxford Boys’ High School on George Street, now occupied by the University of Oxford’s History Faculty.

The University of Oxford’s new Community History Programme has recently been launched. It’s led by Dr Priya Atwal, who we featured last month as OLHA’s newest committee member. The aim of the programme is to help researchers, students and members of the community launch and develop partnerships which promote greater knowledge and understanding of all aspects of Oxfordshire’s history.

Find out more about the programme here, and contact Priya Atwal here.
The next major exhibition at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum (SOFO) in Woodstock will explore the theme of Women and War. Over the last hundred years the role of women in Britain’s Armed Forces has changed radically. The exhibition will showcase stories from women on the home front and from those in active service.

Please contact SOFO if you would like to get involved or have a story to share.

Congratulations to Combe Mill near Woodstock, which has been given an Engineering Heritage Award. This prestigious award from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers promotes artefacts, sites and landmarks of significant engineering importance, past and present. Combe Mill is now recognised alongside the entire Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the E-type Jaguar. A formal award ceremony will take place at the mill’s steaming event on 21 August, to which everyone is invited.

Find out more about the mill and its summer events here.

Stadhampton Mill

The Mills Archive, based in Reading, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Over the last two decades its volunteers have rescued over three million documents and images and made many of them accessible to the public for free. The collection - which includes over 2,000 items relating to Oxfordshire - demonstrates the rich and diverse crafts, buildings, machinery, equipment and people involved with mills in the UK and around the world.

Find out more here and view the archive’s Oxfordshire items here.

The British Modern Military History Society (BMMHS), based in Woodcote near Wallingford, has published the third book in its Glimpses of War series. Glimpses of the Falklands War recounts personal experiences and stories from more than a hundred service men and women, Falkland Islanders and others who were involved in the Falklands War forty years ago. All profits from the sale of the book go to Blind Veterans UK.

Further information and ordering here.
If you have any items for the next OLHA e-bulletin, please send brief text and low resolution images to Liz Woolley by 25 July.
Most Oxfordshire history societies have gone back to meeting in person, whilst a few are still holding talks on-line. Either way, there are interesting history and local history talks on offer across the county almost every weekday. To see a detailed daily listing, go to OLHA’s website.

Here is a selection for July:

5thBritish Modern Military History Society (Woodcote) – David Caldwell-Evans “The Finish-Soviet Winter War 1939-40”. On-line talk, 7:30pm, register by e-mailing zoom@bmmhs.org

11thOxfordshire Family History Society – Mark Olsen “What’s new in Family Tree Maker: Q&A discussion”. On-line talk, 8:00pm (OFHS members only).

11thRadley – Tom Crook “The Great Stink! Engineers, sewerage systems and the Victorian battle against dirt”. St James the Great Church, 7:30pm.

12thThame – Muriel Pilkington “The Mitfords”. Thame Barns Centre, Church Road, 7:30pm.

13thBritish Modern Military History Society (Woodcote) – Mike Tickner “Frontier Ablaze: How the British Army operated on India’s N.W. Frontier in the 1930s”. Woodcote Village Hall, 7:30pm; e-mail info@bmmhs.org or check www.bmmhs.org for more details.

13thWallingford – Janice Kinory “Oxford past and present: Images from the Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) Project”. Church of St Mary-le-More, Market Place, 8:00pm.

18thCharney – David Ashby “Findings and conclusions of recent archaeological investigations at Charney”. St Peter’s Church, Charney Bassett, 7:00pm. Free, but book via ianp.graham@btinternet.com.

25thOxfordshire Family History Society – Simon Wenham “Crime and Punishment in Victorian Britain”. Exeter Hall, Kidlington, 8:00pm.

26thKidlington – AGM followed Janice Kinory “Salt in Pre-historic and Roman Britain”. Baptist Church, High Street, 7:30pm.

Copyright © 2022 Liz Woolley, All rights reserved.


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