This is one of the earliest photograph of the Bampton Morris Men taken in 1897, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. The dancers are George Wells/Taylor Thomas William Tanner Joseph Rouse Robert Dixey George Dixey James Dewe Charles Henry Tanner, ragman Henry Radband, sword carrier William Nathan Wells, fool, known as Jingy Richard Decimus Butler, musician
Freda Bradley lent this to the Archive to copy and we believe she is talking about her Grampy owning Sundown Cottage at one time. In the 1960s it was purchased by Bernard Rose along with Sandfords where he and wife Molly lived and he demolished the old cottage.
The staircase to the top floor of the Grammar School was removed in the 1960s when people stood a greater chance of getting to the ground floor by falling through the rotten floor than coming back down the stairs. The Bampton Community Archive members have worked incredibly hard to raise funds on the back of the tourism boost from visitors flocking to Bampton to see the this building which was used as the Cottage Hospital in ITV's Downton Abbey. The grant from WODC means the work to bring the whole building into good heart can begin.
Originally called the Bampton Charity Shop, it had a name change and a legal status changed to enable it to donate monies to other charities in Bampton. Apparently a charity cannot give money to another charity and Trevor Milne-Day gave his time to deal with the legal matter of the change. In this article Fenella Gray talks about the history of the shop from its inception in 2004.
15 year old Claire Wythes first went along to Guides aged three because her mother, Margaret Wythes was Brown Owl with the Bampton Guides. Claire was awarded the Queen's Guide Award, the Guides top award, at the WI Hall by the District Commissioner Mrs C Cooper.
William Nathan 'Jingy' Wells danced, fooled and played the fiddle for Bampton Morris from the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. In this picture he is seen with his fiddle. The hat, waistcoat, trousers and socks (odd socks) are still cared for by the Bampton Traditional Morris Men.
The Friends of St Mary's have recently been arranging a series of 3 talks, one in Feb, March and April to raise funds for the church. This poster was for the Feb 2018 talk entitled "The Graveyard Shift: surgery and body snatching at Guy's Hospital in the 19th century." The talk was given by Professor Roger Jones.
A bird was found to have made its nest inside the letterbox at Bampton and Brize Norton Railway station by Mrs Emmie Papworth who along with Mr F G Cannons was a post lady in Bampton about 1960. It was thought to be a member of the tit family and was disturbed only once while the eggs were being hatched.