Witney Gazette advertisement for the Bampton Street Fair of 1984, with small adverts of local Bampton businesses. A Simmonds in Market Square, sold everything from birdseed and dog food to shoe polish and fresh bread and Cakes. Mr Simmonds was well liked and respected. Wilsons Estate Agents , Butleres of Bampton Local Wine merchant Emmie Papworth Newsagents F Ham Market Square sold ladies and gents shoes Patrick Strainge Butchers, Duttons Wine merchants, Beers Spirits Fruit and vegetables Delicatessen WJ Lock & Son Local Builder and Contractor Painter and Decorator J Temple Hardware DIY Gardening Fishing Tackle
These photographs were taken by Adrian Simmonds and show the wonderful hanging baskets that he always had outside his shop, Bampton Stores. Tim Tomlins prepared the baskets for Adrian which always made the West end of Market Square a delight to see.
Scanned copy of old document containing extracts from Gardener's Gazetteer of Oxon 1852, Lascelles' Gazetteer of Oxon 1853 and Kelly's Directory of Oxon 1895. Listing businesses and trades in Bampton and surrounding villages, and the following surnames are included Adams Andrews Arkell Baines Baker Bateman Beckinsale Beechey Beresford Biddulph Bradshaw Bryant Bullem Burrow Butt Carter Chandler Clack Clifford Clinch Collins Cook Cook Cowley Cox Coxeter Cripps Croft Dewe Dickens Dipper Dumbleton Dutton Edgington Eldridge Evans Forest Fox Frampton Francis Frederick Gerring Giles Gillet Grove Hambridge Hardman Harris Holliday Hollis Hudson Hutchings Jackson Jeeves Jones Knight Lambeth Leforestier Long Lord Luckett May Miller Newport Oakey Patt Perkins Pettyfer Pinnock Pinnocks Plaster Pnnock Prior Pusey Reed Richards Robins Rose and Bullen Sellard Shepherd Smith Southby Sparrowhawk Spiers Spurret Steede Stevens Stone Swinburn Taylor Teall Thompson Townsend Trafford Vesey Waite Walker Walsh Ward Werman Whitaker Widdows Wilkins Williams Winstanley Winterborne Youngâ
Brian and Siobhan O'Rourke owned the Cotton Club and started it in these premises in Rosemary Lane. It acquired a wonderful reputation and I know one seamstress in South Wales who came once every two months to buy her cotton fabric here. After a few years, the shop went across the road into the right-hand side of Duttons and from there it went to the Market Square in the premises that had once been the Central Garage, then Barclays Bank and it was when the bank left the Cotton Club moved in.
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.
