Update June 16th 2021:Exhibition now closed. Many thanks to all visitors and for all your comments and interest.Congratulations also to Joshua Hope and Belle King for your beautiful prizewinning colouring!
An exhibition of photographs from the Wychwoods Local History Society archive is now on view in Milton-under-Wychwood library. The exhibition features some historic views and personalities of the High Street in Milton.
The exhibition coincides with Local and Community History Month, which is sponsored by the Historical Association.
All are welcome, of course, and we look forward to any comments and feedback from regular and new library visitors. The exhibition continues throughout May and into June.
Please use our Contact Us page to let us know what you think of the exhibition.
Children’s Colouring Competition
As a special feature during the event, the society is running a colouring competition for children. Featuring a choice of two historic Wychwoods characters for children to colour, the competition has two prizes of a £10 book token courtesy of the Society.
Copies of the picture to colour are here ( Click on the links):
In the early 1980s Jill Fox joined the band of Home Helps in and around the Wychwoods. She was issued with a nylon check overall and her first client was an elderly gentleman, Fred Tidmarsh in Lyneham. His previous help, Vera Case, had retired. Here are Jill’s memories of those times, in her own words.
Fred Tidmarsh of Lyneham
Fred had originally come with his family from Ebrington. He told me that his father had a job at the farm of Mr Izod in Lyneham in the early 1940s, and there the family had a tied cottage. Mr and Mrs Tidmarsh had, as far as I remember, three children – Fred, Nellie and another daughter (whose name I cannot remember). They crossed the Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire border so that his dad was not conscripted (so Fred said)!
I believe the family had also lived in Wyre Piddle/Upper Piddle which Fred thought was hilarious! When Fred was old enough he too worked at Izod’s farm. Nellie became Mrs Turner and lived in one of the bungalows at the top of Milton High Street when I knew Fred, and she was a widow. His other sister, I seem to remember was in a home somewhere in Buckinghamshire. Each year on her birthday Fred asked me to address an envelope with a £5 note in it, to send to her. Fred could not read or write. I do not know if he ever attended school.
I went to his cottage on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I collected his pension and some groceries from the then Milton Post Office each week. His shopping list consisted of: 2 oz. of tobacco, ¼lb of tea, a piece of cheese (either Stilton or Cheddar), ½ lb of butter, sometimes sugar but not often, and a jar of marmalade. About once a month he would ask for a packet of candles and sometimes he would say his ‘lectric’ had run out and could I get him some more – that meant a battery for his torch.
On Sundays, Mr Lewis, who lived nearby, would go and give him a shave and Mrs Lewis would give him a Sunday roast. The milkman and the baker called. Three times each week I would fill two plastic buckets from the tap at the bottom of the garden, near the privy, and put them in the back kitchen on the table. One was for drinking and one for washing he told me. Then I had to fill two buckets of coal from the coal shed.
Once a week I washed the floor which was red and black quarry tiles, although you could not see their colour as the soot from the fire had discoloured them over the years. However, Fred was very bent and looked at the floor when he walked about so he saw a lot of the floor. I never made his bed. He always did that and he was always sitting in his chair when I arrived. Each side of the fireplace was a big cupboard and in the one, by his chair, he kept his cider. Normally, Mr Hussey (from Hussey’s in Burford) would deliver his one or two gallon jars of cider each week. However, if there was a hiccup in the delivery Fred was not happy and when I asked him how things were he would say “No good – Brewer ain’t been”. I would then be asked to go on my bike, back to The Quart Pot in Milton to fill up a couple of cider bottles from the Off Licence at the side of the pub. Normal service was then resumed!
Also each week I would take his washing home. He kept himself as clean as he could and was never smelly! On his kitchen table was what he called a blue check oil cloth. On the wall was a picture of Queen Victoria, although she was almost impossible to see because the walls were covered in black from the smoke in the fire. He had a regular delivery of coal.
Fred lived downstairs. He had a range with a kettle, always on the boil and he never let the fire out. I have to say that the range was a bit splattered with ‘baccy’! He slept in the same room with navy blue army blankets (a bit moth eaten). I would wash these periodically when the weather was warm enough because they had to go back the same day! The kitchen was attached to the living room and that is where he kept his few provisions. His mother’s old hat still hung on the wall.
When I arrived in the morning, usually about 9.30 I would knock on the door and wait to be allowed entry. The door was never locked when I got there. I could often hear a clink or two as I think he was secreting his cider bottle but I never ever saw it! We would pass the time of day and discuss the weather before I did the chores.
At that time my youngest child was about four and occasionally I would put her on the back of my bike to take her to visit Fred. While I worked, she played dominoes with him and she often won! It was a lovely relationship and for the 45 minutes or so I was there they both enjoyed each other’s company. There were 80 years between them!
One day I asked Fred when he last saw his sister Nellie. At least two years ago was the answer, so I suggested that if I drove to Lyneham one day each week instead of going by bicycle, I could perhaps take Nellie with me. I could leave her with Fred while I ‘did’ for Miss Treadwell who was round the corner in one of Henman’s cottages, and then collect Nellie before returning home about 11.30. He thought this a good idea so we started the new regime. Each week I took Nellie to visit her brother and they had a good ‘chin wag’. It worked well.
Fred was apparently known as “The Cider King”, although this was before my time and when Fred was much younger. Legend has it that he would walk with his dad every night to the Red Horse at Shipton for their pints of cider. One night they were walking home and Fred asked his dad how much he had drunk. “eleven pints” he replied – “Well, I have only had ten” said Fred and turned round to go back for the other one!
I asked Fred one day if he had ever been married. His reply: “I couldn’t afford any of that tack – done a few jobs in my time though”!
One day I arrived at Fred’s and he was in bed. This had never been known before. I asked him what the problem was and he said he could not get out of bed. I told him I would get the doctor. Fred said that, although he wanted to stay in Lyneham, if they offered him a place at “that Langston House place” he would go, although he didn’t know how he would get on with Miss Treadwell (who had gone to reside there after a fall). He told me he thought “That Doctor Beazer is a real gent”. I said not to worry and got on my bicycle speedily down to the surgery. “That Doctor Beazer” was there and I asked him to come quickly to Fred.
I went back on my bike to Lyneham and waited for the Doctor to arrive. He told Fred he must go to Chipping Norton hospital. This put Fred into a panic because, as far as he was concerned, it was the “Work House” and his biggest fear was that they would give him a bath! I explained that it would be very different and that I would follow the ambulance and see him in safely.
Whilst waiting for the ambulance to arrive Fred had me climb up to the big cupboard, at the side of the range, and in there was a biscuit tin with money and a copy of his Will. He said I was to keep it safe as the Will was for his sister and the money was to pay for his funeral. This I did and off we went in convoy to Chippy hospital.
I saw him safely into a lovely clean bed (they did not give him a bath). He was concerned because he did not have a clock so I gave him my old, schoolboy type, Timex watch which I wore for my chores. He looked very comfortable and as I left he said “Thank you, it won’t be long before I sees the Lord”. I then took the tin and his Will to Nellie in Milton and told her what had happened.
I went home sad, but pleased Fred was in a safe place. The next morning, around 8.0am there was a knock on the door. It was Dr Scott who came to tell me that he had been to certify Fred’s death. I was very touched by his sensitivity, knowing I would be worrying about Fred. Fred is buried in Milton cemetery, strangely near Miss Treadwell. His cottage is now called “Tidmarsh Cottage”.
After his funeral, I was able to buy his chair from his sister and it is in regular use in my kitchen – a permanent reminder of Fred who was a lovely person and whom I feel privileged to have known. My experiences looking after folk who needed a bit of help to remain in their own homes in the Wychwoods enriched my life and gave me many lasting, happy memories.
In this year of the society’s 40th anniversary, here is a short trip down memory lane to the society’s 25th Anniversary in 2006. Amongst activities that year, the society produced a commemorative porcelain mug.
The Wychwoods Local History Society 25th Anniversary Commemorative Mug: 2006
Here are some short biographical notes on the four interesting Wychwoods characters which featured on it, with links to more information about them.
Gladys Avery, neé Habgood
Gladys Avery
Gladys’s father, Robert Habgood, took over the tenancy of a farm at Chadlington in 1931. In Wychwoods History volume 13, Gladys remembered the way of life on a farm before the Second World War, and the great changes that came about after 1940 when the War Department took 90 acres of land for a landing ground for the R.A.F.
Gladys worked for her father for 14 years until 1957 doing every job there was to be done on a mixed farm, except exercising the bull! She was very adept with the scythe. She lived in Shipton under Wychwood until she passed away in Spring 2007.
More information about Gladys is featured in the artcle “Farming Memories of Chadlington” in the Wychwoods History Journal No 13 p. 51
Reuben Rainbow
Reuben Rainbow
Depicted playing the piccolo in the band he founded in early 1900s after returning from fighting in the 2nd Boer War. On his left wrist is his music score. He was born in Shipton under Wychwood in 1871 and enlisted in 1888 aged 16.
He was then called up as a reservist in 1899 and fought in the Boer War with the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers. He kept a diary from December 1899 until July 1900. This was later transcribed (a copy is in the WLHS archives) before being deposited in the South Wales Borderers and Monmouthshire Regimental Museum in Brecon.
An article about Reuben and the diary was published in Wychwoods History 17 p46. The diary records all the day to day activities of an army in the field, plunged into the most difficult conditions. He returned to Shipton, married the following year and died in 1911 aged 40 years.
Fanny Rathband and the Wychwoods Local History Society Emblem
Mrs Rathband was the last surviving Ascott Martyr when the photograph, on which this portrait is based, was taken around 1925 outside Milton Methodist Chapel. In 1873, at the age of 16, she was sentenced with fifteen other women (two with young babies) to ten days in Oxford jail for picketing a farm in Ascott.
The cause of the dispute was the sacking of farm labourers who were members of the National Union of Agricultural Labourers. The harsh sentences imposed by two Reverend magistrates caused a national outcry but because Parliament was about to recess, nothing was done.
After several days, when some of the women had already completed their sentence, the Home Office advised Queen Victoria to remit the remainder of the sentence of the seven women still imprisoned. The warrant eventually arrived on the day that the remaining women were due for release.
Mrs Rathband lived in The Square in Milton, dying in 1939 at the age of 82.
Based on a photograph showing him standing in the timber yard of Alfred Groves, Milton under Wychwood, Richard Hartley was the first of the Hartley family to farm in the Wychwoods.
He had been a miller and an astute businessman as well as farmer before moving his wife, five small children, the family’s goods and chattels, 32 horses, numerous cattle and 15 men from Wigginton Mill near Banbury to Grove Farm, Shipton under Wychwood in 1892.
Once in the Wychwoods, he took over other farms in the area, particularly Manor Farm and Lower Farm in Milton under Wychwood.
On April 15th 2021 the society hosted a talk by Brigadier David Innes, who spoke movingly and with vivid detail on the life and times of Captain Ralph Kite M.C. of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. The story of this young soldier of the Great War is told in Dr Simon Harris’ book “RBK a Very Parfit Gentil Knight”, and David’s talk drew on that resource.
Wychwoods Local History Society: Poster
We learnt of Ralph Kite’s early life as the son of a clergyman, posted to Hobart, Tasmania, and of some surprising contemporaries. These included individuals as diverse as Bernard Montgomery (later of course “Monty” of El Alamein fame) and Errol Flynn, Hollywood icon. We followed Ralph Kite through prep school, public school education and Keble College, and then immediately on to the outbreak of the Great War, where he and so many contemporaries signed up to service.
The core of David’s talk covered the several engagements in which Ralph Kite distinguished himself, especially during Somme battles. We learned through maps and images, some real insights into those battles, and their costs, which only a military expert such as Brigadier Innes can describe dispassionately and sympathetically in equal measure. It was sobering to understand how soon and how quickly such natural leaders as Captain Kite could find themselves promoted to command at such a tender age. Captain Kite was all of 21 years old in 1916.
Without sensationalism, we had many insights into the practicalities of war and training for war, including the use of telescopic sights in sniper warfare, and the need to train up troops in the art of handling grenades. The grenades of the time were rudimentary and often more dangerous to the handler than the enemy.
Amidst it all of course, were the stories of friends and colleagues lost in battle. These stories were moving indeed. The circumstances of Ralph Kite’s injury and subsequent decline is a story not necessarily of neglect, but certainly from a 21st Century perspective, avoidable. His death from wounds in December 1916 at a base hospital in Le Treport was described with great reverence by David Innes’ wife, reading from the diary – discovered many years later – of the nurse who witnessed Ralph Kite’s passing.
This was a memorable and information-rich evening.
About David Innes Brigadier David Innes was the first commanding officer of the 5th Battalion Royal Green Jackets, a new Territorial Army battalion raised in the mid-1980s and based in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Away from work and following his earlier military career, David held the honorary position of Lieutenant of The Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard. This saw him take part in several state occasions a year, including searching the cellars of Parliament for any latter-day Guy Fawkes! David is also a Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Hampshire. He is also a director of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock.
The article contained in the attached PDF appeared in the society’s 2010 Journal Number 25. Written by Gwen McConnachie, it is itself reproduced from a short essay on depictions of the Virgin Mary in medieval art.
St. Mary the Virgin Church, Shipton-under-Wychwood
The building under discussion here, is the medieval church at Shipton-under-Wychwood, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin. the construction of which dates from around 1200. The south porch is a later fourteenth-century addition, like so many Cotswold church porches.
The pair of low relief sculptures which are the subject of the article are inset in two niches above, and to the sides of the portal.
Shipton Church South Porch with Annunciation Relief Sculptures
The niche to the right of the portal shows the Annunciation with the angel Gabriel making known to Mary that she will give birth to the Christ child. Sadly, the sculpture to the left has been mutilated and cannot therefore be identified with accuracy.
In advance of our next evening talk on April 15th 2021, we reproduce here the article by Wendy Pearse from the society’s Journal No 18 published in 2003.
Map of the Middle East showing Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia
Wendy Pearse had done some research on the experiences of Sergeant Frederick Smith of Ascott in the First World War. She realised that the campaign in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in which he was involved was one of the longest in British history, was virtually unknown to her. The campaign included the Siege of Kut, a name not readily recalled by many when thinking of decisive World War One battles.
Wendy imagined that Fred Smith was probably the only man from this area who was part of this obscure theatre of war. But the more she read about this totally disastrous, badly planned and well concealed episode of the Great War, she discovered that an appreciable number of men from around the Wychwood area were involved.
These were men of the regular army, members of the 1st Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry who were serving in the Indian Army before the war, and were sent directly from India, initially to help secure the oilfields of Mesopotamia during the latter part of 1914.
Here is a synopsis of the latest of our regular evening talks.
In the winter of 1842, 16,500 soldiers and civilians fled Afghanistan with a single survivor staggering into a British border fort a week later. Knowing a direct ancestor had been taken hostage during the retreat, Tom Shannon recently visited the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Mumbai, also known as the Afghan Church. Tom chillingly realised that if his three times Great Grandfather’s name was among the many listed in that sad place, he would not have been there to read it.
His ancestor’s narrow escape and our fourth military involvement in Afghanistan drove Tom to research the subject that has resulted in a long story that hangs heavy with overconfidence, misjudgment, betrayal and retribution. He proposes that outside intervention has helped nurture radical, fundamentalist forces including the Taliban to rise, flourish and continue to threaten the stability of that poor country.
About Our Speaker: Major Tom Shannon TD PhD Tom has served as an Australian regular soldier, naval reserve sailor and finally as a Territorial rifleman. He is a founder of the Oxford Metrics plc with over 30 years of international and commercial experience as a practicing engineer and scientist with a focus on the medical applications of computer vision to human motion and shape. Tom also currently holds a Visiting Professorship within the Faculty of Health Sciences at Staffordshire University researching adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. In his spare time he is also a passionate amateur historian, trustee director of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and a sheep and cattle farmer in Somerset.
The talk was delivered on March 18th 2021 on Zoom.
The Wychwoods Local History Society website often receives enquiries from the wider world. Recently John Longshaw contacted the WLHS from Sussex. He said that his late father, Leslie Longshaw who died in 1990 aged 79, had left a hallmarked silver fob watch. An engraved inscription indicated that this had been awarded to Emma Pittaway for exemplary school attendance at Shipton School. He was puzzled as he could not see any connection with his family name. From here, the story continues…
The watch that started it all……
We were able to establish a connection relatively easily from the parish records. In 1900 a James Pittaway married Lucy Anne Smith (the widow of John Longshaw). Witnesses were Thomas Longshaw and Geraldine Longshaw. They had two daughters – Emma baptized in 1900 and Bertha baptized in 1907. There was no further reference to Emma but it appeared that Bertha had died in 1981 and had lived in Bowerham in Gas Lane Shipton.
John was pleased to learn this and sent us more details of his father’s connection with Shipton. How his father came to Shipton is a rather sad story, although he always claimed his childhood years in Shipton were among the happiest of his life.
Leslie Longshaw as a young man
After the birth of her third child, his mother was sectioned to a mental institution for a condition which today would be recognised as severe post-natal depression. The children were told she had died and Leslie was sent to live with his grandparents who lived in Leafield Road in Shipton. His brother and sister were sent to a children’s home. It was only much later in life that he received a phone call from a nursing home to say his mother was alive and he subsequently used to visit her until her death. As they say “the past is another country”.
His grandfather, Thomas, was born in Shipton in 1859 and died there in 1921. He appears to have been a gardener at St Michael’s Orphanage. Leslie attended Shipton village school and made many friends there. The headmaster was John Strong, who reportedly used to measure up fields, to augment his income, for farmers at harvest time for those who had to hire contractors using traction engines and threshing machines.
Thomas Longshaw of Shipton born 1859
He remembered the Squire, who used to organise a Christmas dinner at Shipton Court, for the village children. Leslie was in the choir at Shipton church and a church member who was a master at Burford Grammar School taught him to read Latin. He recalled a charabanc outing to Western Super Mare organised by the Sunday School.
Leslie was also an active member of the local scout troop and went on camps using a trek cart. He recalled many events and traditions in the village some sadly now gone for ever – Guy Fawkes night, the Hospital Carnival, the Local hunt meet. He said some people celebrated the Epiphany when bonfires were built, shot guns fired in the air and his grandmother baked a special Epiphany cake. The village baker, Marky Buntin baked on a Sunday and his grandmother sometimes took her Sunday lunch to be cooked along with others in his still hot bread oven for a nominal sum. His grandmother’s cottage had no range and meals were cooked in pots over the fire.
Thomas Longshaw and his son Alfred Longshaw
One story that he related was that his grandfather used to like to get the train to Stow on the Wold or perhaps Chipping Norton (both possible by rail in those days) on Boxing Day. He would have a few pints there and then walk back. On one occasion he was joined by John Longshaw, a relative who was a shepherd. The young Leslie went with them. He must have been less than ten years old.
On the way back a terrible blizzard started and they could hardly see the road in front of them. His grandfather wanted to take shelter but the old shepherd said that, if they did, they would not survive the night so they carried on walking. Sometimes they had to walk backwards so strong was the wind driving the snow into their faces. On the outskirts of the village they were met by the village policeman and men with lanterns. Grandmother had gone to the police house and the village police man had organised a search party. Needless to say, his grandfather received a serious ticking off.
Leslie also remembered an extremely rare sighting of the northern lights at Shipton due to freak weather conditions. A lot of the old folk thought the end of the world had come and had to be reassured by the vicar and doctor.
When he left school at fourteen he was not keen on agricultural work and his grandfather helped him gain a position working on the wooden cases for cash registers in the first till yard established just after the First World War. When he started there his job was to check and start the stationary petrol engines that powered some of the machinery. Later his father, Albert, obtained a position for him with Marshall and Snelgrove where he worked in London. Eventually he joined John Lewis and completed 40 years with the company ending up as a textile buyer.
Helen Hodge who married Thomas Longshaw
He met and married Winifred Schofield, in 1939. She was evacuated during the War to Shipton with her first child Christine. Winifred worked in the booking office at Shipton station at this time and her mother worked as a post woman in Shipton for a while.
Emmie and Bertha Pittaway’s father
Although he lived in Surrey, Leslie kept strong links with family relatives in Shipton and regularly attended annual village ”lads” reunions in the village, staying with friends Graham and Dulcie Arundel at their bungalow Clutterdene. The reunions started in 1972 and friends came from all parts of the country. The Wychwood Magazine reported on the reunion of 1983 in its volume December 1983-January 1984. The following are notes from that report mentioning some of the participants who met in the Shipton cricket pavilion for an afternoon of nostalgia.
“Older residents of Shipton will remember Drummer Longshaw who lived in Magpie Alley; Bert Powell, who lived in Chapel Lane and who joined the Metropolitan Police in the 20’s; Jack Baylis, a nephew of Alf Baylis, who brought the Cash Till industry to Shipton, and who must have employed at least a hundred people at one time; Leslie Longshaw who spent his school days at Shipton under the great John Strong.
On leaving school, Leslie went to London and now lives in Surrey. Bill and Reg Franklin will be remembered by most people as their father was the village postman. Reg joined the Royal Air Force straight from Burford Grammar School and now lives in Twickenham. His brother Bill joined the army soon after the outbreak of war, was soon commissioned and spent most of his time in India.
It was good to see Les, Cecil and Dennis Viner there. Les and George Case are two of our one hundred percenters, having attended all twelve ‘get-togethers•. Les still lives in Shipton and George at Leafield. As always, it was great to see Reg, Bob and Dorothy Brookes. Reg was on top form, and it was like old times to see him well again.
Alf Carpenter was another of our old football team, who was there. There are not many members of that team left now, but it was that team that brought soccer success to Shipton. Charles and Bill Slatter made up the eighteen who attended our gathering”.
Leslie used to say that change was inevitable and the village was never the same as it had been in his youth. He particularly liked to go on holiday in South West France as the old stone working villages and small farms with their tiny fields and many hedge rows reminded him very much of the Cotswolds in the pre-war years.
The annual reunion of Shipton old boys
This image is of the annual reunion of Shipton old boys who had been at school under John Strong in the 1920s. The picture was taken in 1983 in the Shipton cricket pavilion. The first reunion had been in 1972.
Left standing: Bob and Dorothy Brooks; Left seated: Les Reed; Third from left seated: John Longshaw (Drummer?); Sixth from left standing: Leslie Longshaw and in front of him Bill Slatter; Others on the photo include: Charlie Slatter, Alf Carpenter, Reg Brooks, Les, Cecil and Dennis Viner, Bill and Reg Franklin, Jack Baylis, Bert Powell, Les Case and George Case.
This article was written in 1988 by John Rawlins and appeared in No. 4 of the Society’s Journal. It is reproduced here as part of our occasional series on Prebendal House.
The activities of the Oxford Archaeological Unit at Prebendal House, coupled with the interest and co-operation of the owners and their contractors, stimulated the Society to research further into its history. A request was made for any old photographs which might add to our knowledge of the property. Initially very few were forthcoming, but on checking an old photograph of the Prebendal staff with Bob Bradley, he produced the wedding photograph shown here. Both his mother and my father appear in the back row, and Mrs Hinde, the owner of Prebendal at the time, sits on the groom’s right. It was obviously taken at Prebendal, but why and when?
The wedding of Levi Evens and Katherine Wall, 14 July 1915
The photograph prompted Norman Frost to recall some correspondence he had had with a retired minister of the United Reform Church, the Revd Norman Singleton. With the kind permission of the Revd Singleton (who appears as the pageboy in the sailor-suit in the front row) the letter is now quoted in full.
When war with Germany was declared in August, 1914, the Old Prebendal at Shipton under Wychwood was a lovely ‘stately home’ in the old tradition – dignified, handsome, comfortable, well-staffed with ‘domestics’, gardeners and coachman, and owned by a ‘stately’ pair of occupiers, Dr and Mrs Hinde. Soon, Britain was really at war and our young men were being killed or wounded by tens of thousands, at which Dr and Mrs Hinde offered to turn part of the house into a convalescent home for wounded men, an offer quickly accepted by the authorities.
Beds, medical supplies, and other necessities, plus a nurse or two, quickly appeared at Shipton and were soon followed by a string of young men in blue hospital uniforms. When 1915 became warm enough, the lovely garden took on a new look with groups of blue-clad men – some bandaged, some on crutches ¬enjoying the peace and beauty of it.
At least two romances developed from all this. One had begun previously when Mrs Hinde engaged a new, young assistant gardener named William Sabin. Finding that Will was attracted to her personal maid, Nell Evens, Mrs Hinde thought it best for Nell to go home to Lancashire, which she did, though not surprisingly Will was soon called up for army service. Mrs Hinde was then without either of them and, missing Nell’s invaluable services, she quickly recalled Nell and used her in the convalescent home arrangements. To that end Mrs Hinde bought a motorcar – an Overland ‘tourer’ – which Nell quickly learned to drive and many of the wounded soldiers were met at the station by Nell and the Overland. And what could Mrs Hinde say or do when one of the wounded arrivals was none other than Will Sabin? Thus, a few years later Will and Nell were married, being tremendously happy together for many years and dying within a week of one another in Hertfordshire.
By another coincidence, one of the wounded soldiers turned out to be Nell’s brother, an extremely good-looking young man who, while at the Old Prebendary, quickly ‘fell’ for one of the young housemaids. It was all very sudden, and a great event in the first year of the Shipton ‘soldiers convalescent Home’ was when Levi Norman Evens (aged 22) married Katherine Lilian Alice Wall (21) at the Parish Church on 14 July 1915.
They were anxious to marry before Levi’s return to the trenches; Mrs Hinde was anxious that it should be more than just a ‘war wedding’; and so she did all she could to make it a great day for both. Thus, the procession out of the Church was of a ‘white’ bride, a handsome soldier bridegroom, soldier best man, six `white’ bridesmaids, and lastly a very young pageboy dressed in a sailor outfit and carrying a Union Jack which, incidentally, he had dropped with a clatter in the centre aisle during a prayer! (No carpet those days!) Sadly, as the war took its course, Levi Evens was badly gassed and he died very soon after the war ended.
The society’s latest online gathering on Feb 18th, 2021 was another well-attended session. Members and guests continue to support and enjoy these “at-home” evenings. This one was no exception, not least due to the obvious enthusiasm and commitment which our speaker gave to his subject.
The talk – on The Wilts & Berks Canal – was given by stalwart supporter and onetime project director Martin Buckland. It featured a synopsis of the history of the canal’s development. It also covered the canal’s eventual decline (in common with the entire canal network due to the coming of the railways) and then the revival of interest by local communities to revive the waterway for social and tourism development.
We learned that the canal opened in 1810 after 15 years of construction but had a chequered career until its legal closure in 1914. In 1977 restoration of the canal began in a few places.
However, in 2004, a full restoration of the entire 62 miles was decided upon.
Martin’s talk looked specifically at the restoration progress and future proposals for the canal. It focussed in detail on the development and opening of a 150-yard cut near Abingdon at the Eastern end of the canal, named the Jubilee Junction. Running from the River Thames to the edge of a former gravel pit south of the town, it is a key section of the project to reopen the canal for its entire length.
Martin’s talk also showed a tantalising number of images taken from key places along the canal. These were of various projects – past and current. Included was a particularly stunning development at Shrivenham, involving the delivery of vast quantities of ash from the Didcot power station in the days it was operating. All these images represent subject-matter, certainly, for further focus on similar projects. These are, as Martin called them – “pearls” along “the string of pearls” which describes the canal in an apt metaphor
About Martin Buckland
Martin Buckland has been interested in Industrial Archaeology from the age of 4 when watching Great Western trains with his Dad at Iver where he was born.
Nearly seven decades later he is involved with the Great Western Society at Didcot Railway Centre and with the restoration of the Wilts & Berks and other canals.
He gives talks at Abingdon Museum to primary school children and leads walks along the historic and proposed routes of the Wilts & Berks Canal and another covering the rivers of Abingdon.
Oxford Mail Report on the Jubilee Junction . (The name was chosen to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of IWA)
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Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
