This video club shop was well used and its demise was brought about when the local little supermarket began renting films and it was just too easy to get a film from the supermarket while buying other items. It was a special outing to rent a film from this shop in Bushey Row and a few people collected the posters that used. Now a film can be downloaded something of the magic of making the special effort to go out and rent a copy has gone.
The lovely black and white photograph shows Mrs Clark in her shop doorway. The shop was in the High Street on the north side almost opposite Bovington's wet fish shop.
We were all sorry when Adrian Simmonds had to close his shop. It was like an Aladdin's cave inside and he aimed to have 6 new things each week. There is a letter to the Bampton Beam here from Toby Hopkins and one from Adrian himself.
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
n November 2015 eight products, including Patrick Strainge's Bampton Royal sausages were nominated for the Q Guild Smithfield Awards. Only 200 butchers in England can hold a Q guild aware at any one time so it really is a feather in the cap of our local butchers shop. The Bampton Royal sausages were also a firm favourite with many members of the cast of Downton Abbey which was partly filmed in Bampton.
Doug Read OBE (he gained the OBE for services to ploughing) was a huge fan of classic cars and owned several over the years. These are four of them and show
Trojan Tourer 1924 model owned by Doug Read. Douglas Read driving, passengers David Hunt, Bill Bullock and Geoff Hunt
Photograph of a Riley Monaco in 1933
Photograph of MG Model J.2. 1932 in 1948.
Photograph of MG Model T.A. 1937 driven by his wife Sally (nee Raymond) in 1953 (Sally was buried in Nov 2020)
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.
