The society’s first evening talk for the 2022/3 season was by Medway Queen enthusiasts Mark and Pam Bathurst, who had travelled all the way from Margate to be with us.
The Medway Queen is the last estuary paddle steamer in the United Kingdom, and the full story of her design, build, civilian and war services unfolded before us in Mark and Pam’s impressive multimedia presentation
We learned that the Medway Queen initially entered service as a pleasure vessel to provide shuttle services between Chatham and other Medway towns to Southend in 1924. With occasional excursions elsewhere she served on the same route until the beginning of the Second World War.
She was then requisitioned for the Royal Navy in 1939 and converted for mine-sweeping and remained an active minesweeper until late 1943 and was later repurposed as a minesweeping training vessel for the rest of the war.
Significantly, and a main focus of Mark and Pam’s presentation, was the part played by the Medway Queen in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of allied troops from the Dunkirk beaches. We learned of the heroism of the ship and her crews as they made seven return trips across the channel, rescuing upwards of 7,000 men and in the process managing to shoot down 3 enemy aircraft.
c. The Medway Queen Preservation Society
After the war, the Medway Queen was refitted and returned to civilian services in 1946/7, but by the early 1960s paddle steamers such as the Medway Queen were competing with more modern vessels and eventually she was taken out of service in 1963.
From here we learned of the struggles to preserve the memories represented by the Medway Queen, with several failed attempts to secure her preservation before she was bought by a consortium in 1965 to become a night club and restaurant – The Medway Queen Club – on the Isle of Wight. By the early 1980s the club had folded, the vessel itself suffered some hull damage, and was brought back in rather poor shape to the River Medway.
With a sinking and other narrow escapes from the scrapyard, the Medway Queen was rescued by the formation of the current Medway Queen Preservation Society in 1985. The Society later became owners of this historic vessel.
We learned of the dedicated efforts of the society to rebuild the ship’s hull (2013) and establish a base and workshop at Gillingham Pier, where the Medway Queen can be visited today. This has been achieved by the securing of substantial National Lottery funding, and from contributions from the European Regional Development Fund. Also, of course, from the dedicated efforts of volunteers in the Medway Queen Preservation Society including those of Mark and Pam who work hard to tell the story, and did well to bring it to us for this enjoyable evening, sometimes with sobering reminders of wartime upheavals but always entertaining and informative.
See more about the Medway Queen on YouTube
… and more about the Medway Queen can be found here.
Charlbury – Then and Now is an interesting new book by long-term resident Dr Geoffrey Walton, published by Down Stone Books and available locally. The book offers a detailed and fascinating exploration of the fabric and buildings of Charlbury from the early 1970s to the present day.
The book records – and explores reasons for – many of the changes visited upon Charlbury since the arrival of the author in the mid 1970s.
Copiously illustrated, Charlbury – Then and Now includes aerial view photos, a town map and a particular focus, using 10 interesting iconic pictures in the Foreword, showing a little of what was happening before and after the author came to the town. These include views from the church tower looking East, the old primary school, and indeed the cover image of animals being driven the “wrong way” along Market Street.
Cattle herded up DyersHill (1991)
Of particular interest to the Local History enthusiast are the two sections which make up the substance of the author’s detailed research.
The first of these sections is a chapter which presents a logical tour of the town, sector-by-sector, with recent photographs of its many and various buildings. These currently might be shops, offices, pubs, or residential properties inter alia. Each building is described with its current use and the changes of use – and often, descriptions of the personalities involved – over time. It forms the substance of the “Now” of Charlbury.
The second of these sections of Local History interest is in a substantial appendix, which contains over 70 historic (pre-2020s) photographs which further illustrate the changes which have happened in the town. These photographs show mainly shops and businesses that since being closed and the buildings re-purposed. Among them are pictures of individual residents. And so here we have the “Then” of Charlbury, copiously illustrated.
Perce Bateman serving petrol at Dave Coles’ garage in 1981 before the pumps were banned
By his own admission the author presents the book as a personal view of the main drivers of the developments illustrated in these two sections. He occasionally refers to his discussions of these drivers as a “polemic” and as such, readers can expect some forthright views which are certainly part of the debate around the benefits and drawbacks around national and local decision-making processes.
The book is on sale in Charlbury at Cotswold Frames (opposite the museum), at Chadlington Quality Foods in Chadlington and at Jaffe and Neal in Chipping Norton. It can be purchased direct from the author ( please Contact Us for details). The price is £15.
Our April 13th talk in Milton Village Hall was given by Mark Davies: “Alice’s Adventures in Oxford – Lewis Carroll and the River Thames”.
35+ members and guests enjoyed another enjoyable, entertaining and instructive evening, where Mark gave the story of the creation of Lewis Carrol’s enduring classic some intriguing and engaging perspectives.
We were presented with a true detective story – tracing some of the origins of Lewis Carroll’s two books based on Alice’s adventures.
Mark showed how both ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’ were developed by Carroll from stories he told to entertain the Liddell sisters during lengthy boat trips along the Thames. He also showed how these stories were full of characters cleverly disguised but actually very recognisable to the girls. We saw how things that happened in the stories were inspired by real life events and places they visited along the river.
We learned that Lewis Carroll, who as Charles Dodgson was Professor of Mathematics at Christ Church college, met the Liddell family in 1855 when Henry Liddell was appointed Dean of Christ Church and moved there with his young family. Carroll with his friend Robinson Duckworth accompanied some or all the Liddell siblings on a total of 19 boat trips between 1856 and 1863
Mark’s research drew on sources including Carroll’s own diaries and uncovered the significance of many places along the Thames from Godstow to Nuneham.
Lewis Carroll self-published ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ with his own illustrations because the real Alice had implored him to write the stories down and others convinced him there would be a wider appreciative readership. But no one, not even the imaginative Lewis Carroll himself, could have dreamt that the Alice stories, now associated with the wonderful Tenniel illustrations, could have become as famous worldwide as they are today.
A measure of the interest shown was the fact that every one of the copies the associated book “Alice in Waterland” which Mark had brought with him were sold at the end: a first for the group, one might say.
Mark is an Oxford local historian, guide, and author with a particular interest in the history and literature of the city’s waterways, having lived on a residential narrowboat in Oxford for nearly thirty years.
His relevant publications are Alice in Waterland: Lewis Carroll and the River Thames in Oxford and Alice’s Oxford on Foot.
Mark has helped to organise Oxford’s annual ‘Alice’s Day’ since the first one in 2007, provides the only Alice-specific guided tours and boat commentaries in Oxford, and is on the committee of the Lewis Carroll Society.
Our March 2022 evening talk was with Bertie Matthews who presented the history of FWP Matthews Mill in Shipton under Wychwood.
The evening was another particularly successful one, with around 55 members and some new faces coming to enjoy what was an engaging talk around what must be described as an icon of local enterprise. Many of us who came had family and friendship connections with staff and workers at the mill over time, and so the talk had plenty of personal interest.
Bertie Matthews is the latest generation of his family to run its grain merchant and flour milling business, joining the family mill in 2017. He gave a brief introductory overview of family research into the Matthews name from the 1400s up to the 1780s. Matthews names (originally “Mathews”) derives from medieval families around Llandaf in Wales including a connection with a David AP Mathew in the 1400s. The name was associated with wind and watermill ownership. Later Matthews families in Warwickshire, associated with Nailcote Manor were involved in milling traditions.
However, the story of the Matthews family in Shipton starts with “Generation One” with the name of Marmaduke Matthews 1 (1782-1840) and his arrival from Warwickshire to Fifield House in 1802. In addition to farming activity Marmaduke rode the wave of the Agricultural Revolution with its huge increase in efficient grain production and was able to build a seed-trading enterprise and so set the tone for the Matthews family involvement with local produce and quality grain.
Efficiencies continued to drive the expansion in national agricultural activity, and with “Generation Two”, Marmaduke Matthews II (1812-1883) sourced grain and samples from local farmers, increased the acreage of the Fifield farm, though with no large corresponding increase in the number of workers needed to sustain it. This foundation, operating in local markets until the 1840s, was the basis for further expansion, which came with the railways, and the opening of national markets – clear signs that the time to diversify into milling was near.
Two more generations followed to take advantage of these changes. Frederick Matthews I (1841-1911) expanded the business to wheat and barley selling for several years. His son, Frederick William Powell (FWP) Matthews (1868-1930) was the driving force towards the idea of milling locally grown wheat. In the context of the collapse in grain prices in the late 1880 due to American imports, this was a mandate for business survival.
Although he was the driving force behind the plans for the mill, unfortunately Frederick I died before it was completed, and so it was his son FWP Matthews who oversaw the mill’s completion. It was built in 1912 by Alfred Groves and Son and housed the revolutionary Roller Mill technology first developed in the 1870s and used for the first time in Liverpool.
The decision to use locally grown grain – soft wheat grown locally in the Cotswold hills – meant that the market for Matthews flour at this time was around “biscuit” flour. Especially under FWP Matthews’ son Frederick Eric Matthews (1897-1973) the business won successful contracts with famous companies such as Huntley and Palmers in Reading, Peek Frean in London, and Jacobs in Dublin. A regular sight locally at this time was of the flour was transported by rail by horse and cart on the 25-yard journey between the mill and Shipton Station to those customers.
Ex-POW as he was, Frederick Eric Matthews was the prime mover in keeping the business solvent during the post-war years. As well as maintaining those lucrative contracts, the business divested itself of land and focussed on milling, trading as a coal merchant and later starting the diversification into bread flour.
Frederick Eric Matthews had two sons: Frederick “Gordon” (1922 – 2020) and Ian, who worked in partnership, trading off each other’s individual strengths in business. Ian Matthews bought in new milling technologies from what is now the Czech Republic, and so massively improved throughput at a time when the “commodification” of food in the post war years was the watchword, and so smaller milling enterprises began to fall by the wayside. We learned for example that in 1950 there were 252 mills and 235 milling companies in the country, but by 2020 these figures were 51 and 29 respectively. Frederick “Gordon” was instrumental in introducing malting barley and supplying local bakeries with bread flour.
Paul (Bertie’s father) and his cousin Graham ran the business from the 1990s to the 2010s, focussing on premium and speciality flours, pioneering organic concepts, and increased production from 100 tons weekly to 500, and with modern machinery could package 6 tons every hour. They also introduced brand names based on local villages and landmarks. However, despite these halcyon moments in the history of the business, in 2017 the company suffered severe setbacks which culminated in a loss of half the annual revenue and staff lay-offs and was forced into Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVA).
However, in spite of these major setbacks, the company has worked through these difficulties, and reset itself to focus on speciality flour production, embracing digital technology for its sales (hugely beneficial during the pandemic lockdown and associated restrictions), and under Bertie Matthews’ leadership has founded the Cotswold Grain partnership and working with local families, farmers, bakers and agronomists in the environment of Regenerative Agriculture. [ More here : YouTube Video]
Iterations of the Matthews’ family business have weathered many changes over the centuries, and Bertie Matthews described these with enthusiasm, aided occasionally by his great aunt Anne Matthews who was able to make impromptu and amusing corrections to his narrative! In the process, we were reminded of changes of time in agricultural practice and the fluctuating ebb and flow of commodity markets, up to and including today’s focus on sustainable farming and food supply. We were left with a deep sense of the place of this landmark Shipton under Wychwood enterprise and its connection and response to these seismic shifts – not least those of the present moment in global grain markets.
The society has had access to a set of scans from recently-discovered glass plate slides owned by the late Ellis Groves 1872-1914. Here, I describe a small selection of these slides, and also include them with 40 more of the better preserved in a slideshow.
“Would I like to look at a box of old black and white transparencies?” This was the offer made to me by Peter Rathbone a few weeks ago. Peter brought them round and I settled down to go through them. The simple wooden box contained about five dozen old glass transparencies. Not your familiar, modern 35mm slides but 3¼” x 3¼” magic lantern glass plates, many in the form of glass sandwiches.
Ellis Groves’ Box of Magic Lantern Glass Plate Slides
A label in the top of the box indicated that they had been put together by the “late Ellis Groves 1872-1914”. Most were very dark and dusty and not always sharply focused. A few had begun to peel off the glass substrate. Not surprising as they had been kept in one of Grove’s sheds for thirty years and had been saved from going to the tip by Peter.
Going by the rare labels, the collection appeared to date from the first decade of the 20th century. A few slides had been coloured by hand. Several I recognised having seen them already in the archives of the History Society. My first reaction was that it was unlikely there would be any treasure here – perhaps just half a dozen images could be salvaged? I was wrong.
In the end more than 40 interesting and usable images emerged, after scanning, from the collection. A few were very surprising and these are the images seen here, in most cases probably for the first time in 125 years.
Slide 1Slide 2
Slides 1 and 2 – These depict an old three wheeled car with the single passenger seat facing forward at the front.
The second slide probably shows the garage where the car was kept. Was this the first internal combustion vehicle in the Wychwoods? Could the driver have been Fred Pepper who had bought Shipton Court in 1901? It does look like him although he is not known to have owned such a vehicle. His first car was in fact a larger French Gobion Brillé but perhaps this three wheeler was a precursor.
Slide 3
Slide 3 – This shows a mix of two cricket teams in front of the Shipton Court cricket pavilion. The label refers to the Shipton Court team and a team from Monk Bretton. Monk Bretton colliery in Yorkshire was owned by the Pepper family. It is known that twenty of the long service employees were invited down for the day to Shipton to play the team from Fred Pepper’s new village in 1908. This photograph marks the event.
The bearded gentleman on the left is Thomas Alfred Groves who owned and managed Groves and was the Captain of Shipton Court and Milton cricket teams. He was the son of Alfred Groves and his first wife, Ann Shepard. Ellis Groves, who assembled the lantern transparencies was the eighth child of Alfred’s second wife Mary Reynolds.
Slide 4 – This shows a young girl holding a poster advertising a magic lantern lecture in Milton for the Mutual Improvement Society. It was included more than thirty years ago in the Second Wychwoods Album. The photo was apparently taken by Ellis Groves who also operated the magic lantern. Did the Mutual Improvement Society meet its aim? As a Shiptonian I could not possibly hazard a guess.
Slide 4
Slide 5- shows the bottom of Burford Hill in around 1905. In the background, behind the assorted Burford urchins, is Hambidge’s Delicatessen. Ellis Groves married one of the Hambidge daughters and his younger brother, Samuel, married her sister.
Slide 6 – A distant view of Green Lane Milton. Older by at least ten years than the view shown in the first Wychwood’s Album. The building on the right was the Quaker Meeting House which was sold in 1925 and divided into two cottages.
Slide 5: Burford Hill c.1905Slide 6: Green Lane, Milton under Wychwood
Slide 7: c 1903 Milton under WYchwood Sunday School Project
Slide 7 – Milton Sunday School built this large life boat and took it to a Sunday School Festival at Moreton in 1903.
Slide 8: Shipton under Wychwood Station Master’s House
Slide 8 – This shows the erection of the Shipton Station Master’s house. It is not clear whether this was the original building or the subsequent demolishing and re-erection as the last house on the right as one one leaves Shipton for Milton.
Wedding of Raymond Burden and Ivy Slatter June 1943
A lady called Jo Lewis wrote recently to the Wychwoods History Society to say that her mother-in-law, who died last December aged 100, had in her possession a wedding photograph of a friend she had made while living in the Wychwoods during the Second World War.
She wished to know whether any of the relatives of the bride or groom might be still living in the area and might like a copy of the photograph.
The mother-in-law’s maiden name was Joan Nesta Mills. She worked with a Shipton girl called Ivy Slatter in Cowley Oxford where they were both engaged in welding to repair spitfires and other damaged aircraft probably at the Metal and Produce Recovery Centre established there (or possibly at Witney where similar work was undertaken).
From the WLHS archives, it appears that Ivy had worked in the drapers, Hathaway’s, before the War and lived in one of the cottages behind the Red Horse Inn. There is also a Private G J Slatter shown on a photograph of the members of the Shipton Home Guard, who may have been a brother of Ivy’s.
Joan returned to Bristol where her mother was ill and became a fire watcher. Ivy married Raymond Burden in June 1943 and sent her friend a photograph of the wedding. Raymond died in 1972 aged 54.
Rod Blackman, who lives in Milton and who is a member of the WLHS, relates that his mother, whose maiden name was Higbee, also worked at the recovery centre during the war and may have known these two ladies. She is fortunately still with us at 98.
If anybody knows of any relatives of either Raymond or Ivy still living in the Wychwoods perhaps they could get in touch and we would be pleased to send them a copy of the photograph.
Our February 9th 2022 evening talk was held in the village hall, with a lively attendance of 45+ members and guests.Our speaker, Stephen Barker looked at the impact on, and connections to Oxfordshire during the Second World War.
Questions and feedback observations were lively among the group, and as seems now typical, we had to end our evening with a feeling that there was much more in our collective memories to recall. Perhaps another time?
Oxfordshire during the Second World War: Summary
Reflecting on the fact that it is now 80 years since key moments in the Second World War – Alamein for example, and the fall of Singapore – Stephen took an approach which was based on “impressions” around some key topics, and made very interesting use of a combination of still images and video/audio clips as part of this idea.
So we heard for example, Chamberlain’s 3rd September 1939 address to the nation that “we are at war with Germany”, and we heard Anthony Eden’s announcement of the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers, specifically to address the ever present threat of invading troops landing by parachute.
Thus the talk evaluated the ‘home front’ and also many other significant events in which Oxfordshire people were involved. Amongst other things, it touched on evacuation, POWs, airfields, refugees, everyday life, rationing, war work, as well as D-Day, Pegasus Bridge, and the Liberation of Bergen Belsen.
Beginningsof War
Having set the scene for the beginnings of war, we heard personal stories of individual children who were part of the throng of evacuees who came from London on the very day that war was declared. These were moving stories of separation, where children had often not been told of the reasons for them being uprooted from their families.
The arrival of teachers and children from West Ham at Chipping Norton station on 1 September 1939, with gas masks and labels. See also our “That’s How it Was” Publication here
The Home Guard in Oxfordshire
In discussion of the Home Guard, it was clear that the response to the call from the men of Oxfordshire exceeded expectations, and thousands applied to be part of initiative. Thames bridges, and particularly the Oxford Canal were a stop line of defence in case of a channel invasion, and so needed to be manned and defended at all costs. And of course, airfields such as those at Abingdon, Brize Norton and Benson were all to be protected, patrolled and managed.
Bombs and Raids
We had several pictorial illustrations of the effect of bombing in the county. Upwards of 4,000 bombs fell in total with 20 deaths, including the infamous October 1940 Dornier raid on the railway and gasworks in Banbury where 6 men were killed, and much damage caused. We were reminded of the target, which was Banbury’s aluminium processing factory where up to 60% of the war effort’s requirement for Spitfire and Lancaster airframes were fulfilled. To confuse the enemy, a complete dummy replica of these works was made some way out of town.
Industry, Factories and Munitions
The importance of the Metal and Produce Recovery plant at Cowley was an eye-opener for some [Interesting BBC archive here: Memories of the Home Front in Oxford ].
As well as repairing stricken aircraft to get them flying again, Cowley also had vast spaces dedicated to recycling and cannibalising wrecked aircraft, and also had its pressed steel factory as part of the Nuffield complex.
Women at War
The role of Oxfordshire women in the war years was also illustrated, including images of “Make do and Mend”, knitting circles and domestic workers, as well of course as the role of Land Girls. Some discussion around the portrayal of Land Girls in the 1990s novel by Angela Huth and its associated movie, which focussed on the love lives of these women. This may or may not have been authentic or realistic!
Dorothy Treweeke on a tractor outside Hill Crest, Bruern Road (1944). See also our “That’s How it Was” Publication here
The important work of World War Two women is encapsulated in the example which Stephen gave of Mary Ellis, born Mary Wilkins on 2 February 1917, in Leafield, who was one of a group of women who delivered Spitfire aircraft from factory to their squadron headquarters.
Prisoners of War in Oxfordshire
With over a half million prisoners of war in the country, Oxfordshire had its fair share. We heard stories of children accompanying POWs to work in the fields, and of a group of Italians tasked to build their own POW camp. Several members of our audience had their own stories of growing up with domiciled POWs who had married and settled to life in Oxfordshire village, and indeed stories of American GIs who were dealing with the culture shock of “two nations divided by a common language”.
Military Adventures and Engagement
Finally, the role of the Oxfordshire military was illustrated by two important engagements. On 6 June 1944, Pegasus Bridge was the objective of members of D Company, 2nd (Airborne) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. This was a glider-borne force who were part of the 6th Airlanding Brigade of the 6th Airborne Division during Operation Tonga in the opening minutes of the D-Day Allied invasion of Normandy. The successful capture of the bridges played an important role in limiting the effectiveness of a German counter-attack in the aftermath of the Normandy invasion.
Meanwhile, a sobering note was the reminder that the first British military unit to go into Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945 was the 249 (Oxfordshire Yeomanry) Battery of the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery.
Celebrations and Aftermath
Stephen’s talk ended with illustrations of VE-Day celebrations and a reminder of the many remaining artifacts and evidence of wartime activities which abound in the county, including pillboxes, Anderson shelters and the still substantial remains of Finmere Airfield near Bicester. These reminders were echoed by the observations by several audience members of their own memories of now gradually disappearing mementos of a wartime landscape.
About Stephen Barker
Stephen is an independent Heritage Advisor who works with museums, universities, and other heritage organisations to design exhibitions and make funding applications.
He worked at Banbury Museum and Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum. Stephen has delivered projects for University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, and the Battlefields Trust. He delivers presentations and tours related to the First World War and British Civil Wars. He is a Trustee of the Bucks Military Museum Trust, the Old Gaol, Buckingham and is an Arts Council Museum Mentor. He is the author of ‘Lancashire’s Forgotten Heroes’ – the 8th East Lancs in the Great War.
On Wednesday January 12th at 7.30 we were pleased to welcome John Perkins, who presented insights into Roman Tackley. John is a historian of science with a particular interest the science of 18th-century and Revolutionary France. Since retiring from Oxford Brookes he is now chair of the Tackley Local History Group and indulges a passion for local archaeology and history.
The talk – this time by Zoom due to the current uncertainties – was attended by 35+ members and guests.
John presented a fascinating talk on Roman Tackley, with many insights derived from fieldwalking, metal detecting and crop mark surveys, undertaken by members of the Tackley History Group and building on the research of others
Thanks to John’s planning, attendees were able to come prepared with a simple printout depicting the area around Tackley, highlighting the extraordinary number of farms and small settlements in the area. A PDF copy is here. What follows in this review can only include a few of the highlights among the many indicated on this map.
Roman Tackley: Farms, Villas, Temples and Cemeteries
John’s talk contextualised his subject in three main ways. Firstly, a simple historical timeline from the Iron Age (800BC – 43AD). From approximately 400BC the general increase in settled agricultural activity is reflected in the locality.
The area was at a junction of influence of three Iron Age tribes – the Dubonni, Catuvellauni and the Atrebates. The presence of Grim’s Ditch (including West of Tackley by the River Glyme) and Aves Ditch (a few miles to the North East of Tackley) are testament to existing settlements at the time of the arrival of the Romans in the early 1st century AD.
Akeman Street Near Sturdys Castle
Secondly the growth of activity can be understood in the context of the building – and development from Iron Age causeways in parts – of Akeman Street by the Romans. This road joined the important administrative centres of Verulamium (St Albans) and Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester). Akeman Street joins modern Oxfordshire near Alcester. The road traversed the district which now includes the village of Tackley and so added to the region’s prosperity in the shape, for example, of the settlement at Sansom’s Platt. Sansom’s Platt straddles the border with Weaveley in Tackley parish and is a 1st-century farming settlement, succeeded by a villa occupied from the 2nd to the 4th century. This settlement grew to service the burgeoning activity around this important thoroughfare.
This example was one of several other settlements of growing importance, including Tackley itself and Gibraltar Point, a site which John’s Tackley History group has had the opportunity to excavate and research. (More here )
And indeed this was the third thread of context for exploring the richness of the area: the development of archaeological interest in the region. This grew in no small measure from the enthusiasm of William Evetts (1847–1936), who was an owner of Tackley Park and Wood Farm and was a passionate amateur archaeologist who built up a large collection of artefacts found on the fields around the village. More about William Evetts is here .
Evetts’ influence on the continuing desire to understand as much of the story is well-demonstrated by John’s fascinating research notes here
Tackley History Group at Gibraltar Point
John was able to present in some detail, the work done by the Tackley Group: from examining crop marks, establishing archaeological digs with test trenches in promising locations, metal detecting and fieldwalking. These were all in the mix to present details of interesting finds including some high-value jewellery items, coins and pottery shards.
Star examples included a piece from an amphora originating in Spain and a bronze terret ring (dated approx. 150AD) found at Leys farm. This latter was part of a harness which did not show marks of wear. Excitingly, this could indicate it may have been a souvenir belonging to the farm’s owner: possibly then an ex-military man given the piece of land as a service reward in retirement?
We also learned a little of the methodology to understand and so calculate the possible population numbers of the area around Tackley. This was done by studying the density of pottery shards, coins and manure scatters, and so extrapolating the sizes of each individual farmstead. By comparing these with the 1851 census, when farming was still to see the machine-age in earnest, family sizes could be similar, and farm sizes clearly known. Thus, a population size could be arrived at using these parameters.
John’s talk did include a mention of the extraordinary find of the Street Farm villa in Tackley village. This was uncovered by a housing development and excavated in a short period ending in 2018, when the site was finally covered by the new buildings. The subject of this villa alone could easily occupy another evening’s presentation. More details are here
The evening gave us a wealth of information and insight. In particular we developed an understanding of an almost seamless development of farming and cultural activity which straddled the Iron Age and the Roman occupation to create what we might call Romano-British Tackley.
As we mark the closing of another year and look forward to the dawning of a new one, here is a short article befitting the marking of passing time. It was written by Sue Jourdan and is taken from the WLHS Journal No. 22 (2007). We republish it here as the last of our occasional series celebrating the work of the Society over the past 40 years. (A PDF of the article can be found here).
Post Script: Quite by chance, WLHS Secretary and researcher John Bennett noticed a clock by William Green of Milton featured on the BBC’s “Repair Shop”, broadcast on January 5th. Regrettably they did not mention anything about the maker, but the name is clearly visible on the clock face, and we see the clock’s inner workings. The programme is available on iPlayer here [ Series 8, Episode 11: link active January 8th 2022 ].
From WLHS Journal No 22
Peter Meecham, Clockmaker, who has lived in Milton under Wychwood all his life, now has in his collection five clocks made by William Green of Milton under Wychwood. William’s name is inscribed on the dial and from the style of the clocks it would appear that William was a Quaker. The first mention of a Quaker meeting in Milton under Wychwood was at Robert Secoll’s house in 1655 with a meeting house built by 1669. It would appear that these properties were in Green Lane as that is the site of the Quaker burial ground and there are still properties called Quaker’s Meet and Quaker’s Piece.
A: A typical 30 hour clock, that is, it has to be wound every day, made about 1760 with a brass dial engraved in the centre with a leaf pattern. Engraved Roman numerals on an applied chapter ring, cornucopia spandrels and steel single hand, coloured blue. This clock would have hung on the wall without a case.
B: Similar 30-hour movement but with a painted dial, which would have been obtained from Birmingham, and two hands, made about 1775. Brass dials had become unfashionable by this time.
Because of their religious convictions, Quakers were unable to swear the Oath of Allegiance and therefore were excluded from higher education or from joining a guild in a town. Clock making was one area where they could apply their skills and, working in country districts, they produced simple inexpensive clocks in localised family networks whose primary bond was one of religious affiliation. How much local fabrication was done by apprentices and to what extent they assemble movements and fitted cases is not known but the Quakers worked to a basic similar design, possibly obtaining engraved dial plates, chapter rings and spandrel castings (corner castings) from someone like Gilkes of Adderbury (1715-1787) another Quaker clockmaker who supplied parts to others.
The Gilkes were a large family of clockmakers working in north Oxfordshire and south Warwickshire in the eighteenth century. Many were one-handed clocks as these were simpler and cheaper to make, and of the four examples illustrated two are single and two have two hands. Again with cost in mind they are 30 hour long case clocks with a frame to hang on the wall without a case with two metal spikes to push into the plaster wall. Any clock without a case is more vulnerable to damage.
C and E: Another brass dialled movement, this time with two hands, of about 1760 and a different star engraving to the centre. The case is of cherry wood and was bought as an extra, most likely made by the village carpenter or undertaker.
The addition of the case would have doubled the purchase price but protected the movement from dust and the hanging weight and pendulum from children, pets and draughts, thus prolonging the time between costly overhauls and improving the accuracy of the time keeping. The clock case would have been made separately by the local carpenter, undertaker or joiner and were usually in inexpensive woods like in pine or oak. Customers would have been local farmers and shop keepers.
D and F: Another single-handed movement similar to A but with a different hand pattern and urn-style spandrels. This is in a pine case, originally painted and varnished.
It has not been possible to find out much about William Green but C.F.C Beeson in Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400-1850 suggests that he was born in 1722, possibly the son of Isaac and Joan Green of Tadmarton, and died in 1770. In John Kibble’s Historical and Other Notes on Wychwood Forest in 1928 he states ‘William Green of Milton under Wychwood had a clock club into which so much per week was paid to get a clock.
References 1 Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400-1850. CFC Beeson. Museum of Science 3rd ed 1989. pp 107 2 Historical and Other Notes on Wychwood Forest. John Kibble. 1928. pp 46
More about William Green: Milton’s Quaker Clockmaker
A 2014 article published in the Wychwood Magazine is taken from Tim Marhshall’s book “The Quaker Clockmakers of North Oxfordshire” >> PDF here
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