Display Boards used to exhibit the restoration of the Old Grammar School. These boards explain the restoration of the Old Grammar School built in the mid 1650s with a legacy of Robert Vesey, as a school to educate the children of Bampton. The Old Grammar School has been in some kind of trust for the village for 370 years. The current trust called the Bampton Exhibition Foundation (“BEF”), was set up in 1906 after the school had officially passed into the hands of the Government Education Department. Bampton Community Archive wanted to secure the future of the building for another 300 years, and give a formal home for the foreseeable future and continue the job of creating and maintaining an historical record of Bampton and surrounding villages. Thanks to lots of hard work and generous support from the landlords (Bampton Exhibition Foundation), WODC, OCC, all our visitors and the benefit of the ‘Downton Abbey’ connection helped to raise sufficient funds to undertake the long-planned improvements to the interior of the Old Grammar School. The building reopened in May 2022. Downstairs Library and Vesey Room with its exhibition space and shop and upstairs a spectacular space which had not been accessible since 1961.
Photograph of Bampton Children enjoying a show or pantomime in the WI Hall (Village Hall) in 1963. The children are numbered in the second photo and named as follows:
Article about Morris Dancing of Bampton in the Bush from the Reading Standard 25th July 2014?. edited from Article in Daily Chronicle September 1914, both copies attached
This is a poem written by John Bolderson, a man from Witney, who was referee for Albert Radband's Bampton Football Club. He makes amusing mention of Frank Hudson, Eric Truman, Rodney Adams, Simon Goddard, Jim (Ginger) Townsend, John Marsden, Frank Barrett, Philip Hewitson, Roger Siford, Mick Walsh, George Siford, Terry Craven, Peter Hawks and William Truman.
