1982 FFF&B ploughing match

Bampton Brass Band. The conductor is the church organist Mr Taunt. The picture was taken early in the C20th

• Badminton CLub
• Darby and Joan Club
• Royal British Legion
• Numismatic Society

Horse Fair pre-WW I outside the Wheat Sheaf inn. Boys are collecting horse manure for vegetable gardens. Note the windows are quite different in what is now the HSBC bank and the butchers. The Wheat Sheaf became the Post Office about 1971 and became a private house in 2010 when the post office moved to the Town Hall and it became a private house.

Horse Fair pre WW I outside the Wheat Sheaf inn. Boys are collecting horse manure for vegetable gardens. Note the windows are quite different in what is now the HSBC bank and the butchers. The Wheat Sheaf became the Post Office about 1971 and became a private house in 2010 when the post office moved to the Town Hall and it became a private house.

Horses outside Church Gate House, for sale as pit ponies

Horses on Church Green. Men with white flags kept the horses under control. A strip of white rag was tied on the tail of a horse when it was sold. In later years, a white sticker was stuck to their rumps. Note the temporary railing in front of Church Gate house. Ladies and children stayed safe in the churchyard while they watched proceedings

Horse Fair - ponies tied up on Church Green were considered by the vendors to be suitable for pit ponies and the Welsh miners knew to come to this part of Bampton to buy their pit ponies. Here, the ladies and children are inside the church wall away from the horses but able to watch the proceedings. It was an event much enjoyed by all and the ladies and children have got their best hats on.

Marion and Ted Lay lived in Bampton all their married life and as Jamie Wheeler says

"They were the loveliest people you could ever meet. I claim a slight family association as their daughter Marjorie married Jim Brooks. It was a second marriage for them both and Jim had previously been married to my Auntie Joyce. I always regarded him as my uncle. Ted was a Morris dancer years ago and we always did one dance outside his house on Whit Monday and for Mrs. Lay after Ted died. Mrs. Lay was sister of Harry Pocock whose name crops up on this site quite often. He died the day I was born (or so Mrs. Pocock used to tell me)"

Leaflet showing public footpaths in and around Bampton created in 2003 based on a series of maps created by BEWG (Bampton Environmental Watch Group).

Maps and drawings by Jo Lewington, Gilly Marsh and Janet Westman.