Category: Guest Articles

Pantomimes have always been very popular in the Wychwoods, and we asked Sian O’Neill, a stalwart of many of the Wychwoods’ productions over the years, to recall some key moments of her involvement in  those historic performances. Here are some of her memories.

About the Pantomimes – My Involvement

And similarly, in Ascott under Wychwood the village enjoyed their own unique pantomimes. Each show was always well attended by their supporters.

 In 1995 I was asked to direct the Shipton pantomime, written by Shipton resident John Drew – Cinderella!  John was the wordsmith of the panto and my role was to contribute ideas, build structure and to add to the humour.

The Clothes Show: A Precursor and Fund-Raiser

I had produced a successful ‘Clothes show’ for the Youth of the Wychwoods, at Chipping Norton Theatre in 1994. The old Beaconsfield Hall was deteriorating and showing its age after more than a hundred years!

The village was on a mission to replace the hall, and fund-raising was the name of the game. Around 100 children trooped up to Chipping Norton Theatre and after numerous rehearsals, whilst at the same time chasing clothes sponsors for financial support,  a very fine Clothes Show was performed.

On to the Wychwoods

Although I had danced and sung in many Womens’ Institute pantos in my youth, through Ballet school in Carmarthen, and had studied dance and drama at the Rudolf Laban studio in London, I had not undertaken such a task before.

Determinedly I set to. My daughter, the only member of the family to have attended the Womens’ Institute pantomime, had been a Brownie and then a Guide. Christine Halliday, who ran the Guides, was usually the principal boy! The Guides were invited along to the dress rehearsal, where my daughter insisted that I include the Commuters and the Penguins!

Commuters and the Penguins? What and Who!?

The Commuters and the Penguins were a tradition of several Wychwoods pantos, first introduced by Daphne Waugh.

Despite the Commuters having such fabulous men as Sir John Graham, Ian Mathews, Malcolm Cochrane and Duncan Waugh, their individuality and insistence that they mustn’t peak too soon, was a force to be reckoned with! That at least one of them should go off in the wrong direction, or  another one  be out of tune in the song they were singing – or using the wrong leg –  simply added extra hilarity to the sketch!

The Penguins had their own routine, and it didn’t matter what they did, because  no one recognised them anyway, in their amazing penguin costumes. Horrifying! The village audience loved it!

More Cinderella Fun

But this wasn’t the end of the fun. The shocked expression on peoples’ faces when the curtains opened in the second half are still legendary! Six women – Pat Bannister, Pat Canning, Diane Johnson, Gail Huntingford, Barbara Wilson and Jane Hills stood clad in black miniskirts, fishnet tights, DM’s and leather jackets- the memory will stay with me forever!

And they had a great trick up their sleeves to follow. They had found a motorbike to whisk Cinderella off to the ball. Laura Marshall was Cinderella’s double and ran into the hall and onto the stage, clad in black, and with a puff of smoke Cinderella – Hilary Wilson, appeared with her beautiful ball clad outfit. Magical!

And after…

The next pantomime I directed was Rapunzel, written by Trudy Yates. Rachel Rodgers played the heroine. After this success, Jack and the Millenium Beanstalk followed. This was very ambitious  -demanding some great and skilfully constructed scenery.  I was also briefly involved with MAFIA – Milton’s pantomime, which again put on a tremendous show. 

The establishment of the Wychwood Players Amateur Dramatic Society, forged initially by Daphne Waugh, really brought the villages together and developed peoples’ natural talents, enriching all our lives.

by Ian Sanders

The society recently heard from Shipton resident Ian Sanders with some intriguing insights into landscape changes near his home. The recent snowfall had a story to tell. Here is Ian’s summary.

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Julia and I moved to Shipton at the end of 2019, and live at Littlestock, which is the last house on Meadow Lane just over the bridge over the Littlestock Brook. With the property, we acquired the meadow which stretches all the way down to the Evenlode. It has Shipton Mill the other side, and the Littlestock Brook running along the southern border in roughly a straight line. As to the house – there are no proper deeds, and the estate agent vaguely said it dated back to around 1800.

The first thing I looked for was our house – and the map shows that Meadow Lane and all the houses along it did not exist at that time.

Secondly, the brook wanders all over what were presumably water-meadows, making it difficult to place exactly where our house was later positioned. The Evenlode was also taking a very different course as it flowed down to Shipton bridge from the north-west.

On Sunday 24th January the snow came, transforming the landscape, and what was clearly shown was a watercourse running across the field to the left of the Evenlode as you look northwards from the bridge. If one then compares this to the 1830 map, one can see that the river did not run straight to the bridge as it now does, but meandered across where this field now in very much the same pattern as this watercourse now does. If this watercourse is in fact the old course of the river, then it confirms the accuracy of the old 1830 map.

The next thing I thought about was what the map tells us about the original channel of the Littlestock Brook. Within our meadow are what I thought were natural oxbows which fill up with water for much of the winter, and these again showed up well in the snow rather like a serpent musical instrument. I originally thought they could have been the course of the Evenlode. If the 1830 map is to be believed, this was the Littlestock Brook as it took a course northwards before joining the Evenlode, roughly at the north-east corner of our meadow below the Shipton Mill.

As to our house and Meadow Lane, I presume that these were built post enclosures in the 1850’s, and following the straightening of the courses of the Littlestock Brook and the Evenlode as it approached Shipton Bridge. Up until then this part of the village may have flooded too often to be built on, and 150 years on is again becoming a frequent event!

A publication funded by the Ascott Village Charity can be seen here. The publication is offered courtesy of the charity. It highlights the fascinating and varied history of the village.

The booklet contains a variety of maps and images. These include features of the village from Neolithic times and the later Iron Age. It describes Saxon field systems and also the Norman Age which saw the building of Ascott’s 12th Century Holy Trinity church. Also described is the founding of the Ascott Village Charity in 1480. Finally, the booklet also covers medieval, Victorian and 20th Century events and personalities.

All in all, this is a handy guide and is an inspiration to wander through the village and its surroundings and soak up its varied and deep past.

The booklet is available here as a PDF.

A Short History of Ascott-under-Wychwood
Copyright © Ascott Village Charity 2016
Thanks to Ascott Village Charity for permission to include this booklet. Not to be reproduced or distributed without the Charity’s written permission. Please check back with the Charity for any updates and amendments.

A Guest Article from Churchill Village

From time to time, we welcome guest contributions from villages local to the Wychwoods. This article comes courtesy of the Churchill and Sarsden Heritage Centre, the small and unique museum in Churchill Village which celebrates the lives of two of its famous sons: Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of India, and William Smith, famous as the “Father of English Geology”. The Heritage Centre is known to most members of the Wychwoods Local History Society, and especially through a talk given to the group in January 2017 on WIlliam Smith by Owen Green.

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In April 2008, Churchill village lost one of its best-loved residents, David Crudge, who had been born in the village in 1920 and at the time of his death, had been its longest resident.

A farmer, David was interested in all farming and rural activities, in particular a project begun many years earlier by his father in establishing the pedigree herd of dairy shorthorn cattle, which he was proud to exhibit at local and regional agricultural shows.

David was a fount of knowledge about village history too, and regularly wrote in the Churchill newsletter, Roundabout. Here are two of his reminiscences of life in and around the village.

David Crudge Remembers: February 1999

Much has changed since local historian Arthur Ward wrote in the 1930s, ‘In practically all the villages in this part of the country, agriculture has been for centuries, and still is, the most important industry and the main source of the livelihood of the bulk of the population.’

Until the end of the 18th century, the landscape was quite different: large open spaces with the arable land cultivated in strips and the stock grazing common land. Our enclosures in 1788 saw the beginnings of fields as we now know them and some still have the names they were given then. Many were obvious choices: ‘Mountfield’, ‘Longround’ and ‘Brookside’, and a glance at the map explains why another is called ‘Crooked Elbow’.

Other interesting names are ‘Challenge’, ‘Hangings’ and ‘Childrens’, while the cow fields behind The Chequers were originally Upper and Lower ‘Football’. Even stranger, Mr Loehnis’ land down Sarsden Road was known as ‘Mouse Pit Ground’ and Sarsden still has a ‘Beggar’s Piece’ and a ‘Witney Gate’.

My favourite is a very small field on The Grange, adjoining the old farm yard, known as ‘Lampacre’. Only in recent years have I found out how it got its name. With very few buildings available then, many animals needing attention during the night – cows due to calve, sheep to lamb or perhaps mares to foal and sick animals – would be put in there before dusk. The farmer could then walk round after dark with his ‘lamp’ – most likely a paraffin lantern, and would soon find and attend to them.

David Crudge Remembers: March 2002

Now that the cattle have gone from the village, I sometimes think back to the 1920s when I was a boy and would walk to school past the busy blacksmith’s shop (now the Forge Guesthouse), the thriving shop and post office and The Chequers, which was then a farm as well as a pub. Jesse Barrett the farmer/landlord walked his cows there twice a day from his grass fields down Kingham Road up through the village to be milked.

There were 4 farms actually in the village and they, like the outlying ones, almost all had pigs, poultry, sheep and cattle as well as a dairy herd. Some 70 or more of the menfolk worked on the land or at the blacksmith’s. There were lots of children about then, the number attending school would be written each day on a blackboard and it would generally be over 90.

The schoolmaster, Mr Anson, was also the church organist and was a fine musician. His village choir won prizes at the local music festivals and his church choir was large and exceptionally good. Many of the village men were in it – the same men who during the week would be doing the ‘ploughing, sowing, reaping and mowing’ and of course milking the cows by hand (milking machines didn’t arrive here till the mid-1930s). The Mount Farm had the largest herd and the most milkers, many of them good singers, so as they worked sitting on their 3-legged stools, they sang and they could be heard from the road.

The most distinguished herd was at Churchill Heath where they bred pedigree dairy shorthorns and owner, Mr Rose, was nationally famous as a judge of them. Mr Martin at Rynehill was a pioneer of clean milk production, while Churchill Farm in the village won the Shorthorn Society’s silver medal for the highest herd average in the county for three consecutive years – one year it was the second highest in the country.

Cows were allowed or even encouraged to eat the grass on the sides of the road and every village garden had a gate, which was kept closed or they would help themselves to the vegetables. It was a different world then; I’m not saying it was better or worse – but shoes certainly needed cleaning a lot more often!