Shops and businesses in and around the Market Square

The Bistro at Wheelgate House in 2012

The Cake Element Bakery. Witney Gazette July 4th 2018

The Old Forge

Extract from Kelly's Directory listing private residencies, occupations and organisations of Bampton in 1935.

An account of life at the Dutton's shop, Bridge Street, from 1971- 1979 by the daughter of the then Proprietors Ann and Ray Saunders, and Reg Saunders. Details the trades represented in the shop, and also lists the neighbouring businesses and the staff employed during that time. People who worked in Duttons whilst we were there
Reg Saunders
Ray Saunders
Ann Saunders
Dave Daniels (delivery driver)
Bubbles Allam wife of Pete Allam
Sue Taylor (wife of Dave Taylor)
Betty Schmidt (nee Kew)
Carol Smith (nee Bourne)
Amy Wooloff
Ivy Wright (nee Timms) (office)
Heather Hunt
Sheila Daniels (wife of Bill Daniels)
Dinah Taylor
Margaret Harrington
Stephanie Delnevo (Saturday)
Angela Head (Saturday)
Sharon Taylor (Saturday)
Anita Saunders (Saturday)
The Elephant & Castle, Bridge Street,
The Horseshoe, Bridge Street,
The Cotswold Grill, Bridge Street (landlord Dave Pasmore)
The George & Dragon, Cheapside
The Jubilee, Market Square
The Talbot, Bridge Street,
The New Inn, High Street (now The Morris Clown)
The Eagle, Church View
Other Businesses in Bampton
Emmies, Bridge Street (Emmie Papworth) Newspapers and Sweets
Butchers, Bridge Street (Vic assisted by Nobby – taken over by Ron and Betty Hickman assisted by Vince Govier)
Midland Bank, Bridge Street,
Arthurs Antiques Bridge Street (Arthur Hill) next to the Horseshoe Pub
Barclays Bank, Market Square (went on to be The Poachers Rest)
Central Garage, Market Square
International, High Street, supermarket (now the Co-op)
Fleur de Leys, corner of High Street and Bushey Row, Hair dressers (now a pottery shop)
Mrs. Ham, High Street, (now Strawberry Cottage) moved next to International where it sold toys and shoes (now Polished Beauty)
Launderette, Market Square, went on to be Temples Hardware and now Bampton coffee shop
Bovingtons Fish Shop, High Street
Hughes, Cheapside, wool shop
Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society, Market Square, next to the Jubilee pub.
Constables, Market Square, Bakery

Rupert Gooddy, a Loyd House pupil from 1970 to 1974, died on July 10 2023, after a short period of illness.
He was brought up in Blackheath, South-East London, the son of John, the clerk to the Governors of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and Barbara, a radiographer. He attended Carn Brea prep school, Bromley, excelling as a sportsman, and was at one stage coached by Derek Underwood, the celebrated England seam bowler.

In Loyd House his sporting progress continued and within two years he had represented Bradfield’s cricket 1stXI. He was a batsman of real power and had an excellent eye. One school report said: “Gooddy played a well-judged and entertaining innings.” Another described him as “a most dependable opening bat and a fine gully.”

Ru’s family spent a good deal of time with his maternal grandmother at Byworth, West Sussex, which may be what inspired his love of country pursuits. He fished and shot, pastimes he pursued enthusiastically all his life. As a boy he kept doves in the garden at Blackheath.

While at Bradfield Ru, ever the nonconformist, with his great friend James Sutherland, acquired two ferrets, Blodwyn and Bill, which were kept out of harm’s way in his Housemaster’s garden, until one morning the Housemaster’s wife opened the front door to find Blodwyn tucking into the contents of her milk bottles. Blodwyn and Bill were “asked to leave”.

He was also an accomplished footballer, golfer and tennis player, his achievements matched only by his insistent pall of self-effacement, any compliment waved away with a genuine lack of conceit. He was ludicrously modest, as well as kind and caring. While he could be, as he admitted, ‘a grumpy sod’, he was essentially an engaging mixture of understated, unshowy charm and quietly forceful mischief, an astute listener and a huge enthusiast for merriment and fun.

Ru was a brilliant and generous host; excellent at putting people at their ease. He spoke with great gentleness and warmth, often almost in a whisper. It was part of an easy, engaging charm, but you underrated Ru at your peril; possibly in business sometimes people did and regretted it. He was a doer, softly spoken but a man of action.

Professionally he was a shrewd, hardworking and extremely successful entrepreneur. There had been early signs of this flair. At the age of six, Ru reported very excitedly that his parents were allowing him to use a couple of square yards of space in their garden, for his own devices. He explained: “I want to grow cabbages that I can sell to my mum.” Thus, the successful businessman was born.

The interest in horticulture was developed in his time at Writtle Agricultural College, Essex. During that period he spent a year working at Wyevale Nursery in Hereford, where he gained a love of the Wye Valley and Black Mountains, his parents having bought a cottage near Hay-on-Wye, which Ru loved. He went on to work at Northmoor Nurseries and in 1979 he opened his own nursery, Rupert Gooddy Plants Limited, Bampton.

Ru clearly belonged in Oxfordshire, where he lived for over forty years, indulging enthusiams for motorbikes, fishing and of course cricket. Moving there was absolutely the making of him, and he married his wife Elizabeth in 1990. His son Francis arrived the following year and daughter Mimi a year after that. The marriage lasted for 17 happy years.

One of the people who worked for Ru for many years was Di Newman. She said of him: “He was such a good bloke. Funny, caring and looked after his staff really, really well … If anyone was in trouble, he’d help them out, he’d go above and beyond… he would always give the young a chance by offering them work and he would always consult his staff before making decisions. He was out in all weathers with us, and never asked anyone to do a job he wouldn’t do himself. He was fun-loving and always rewarded well … Nothing was too much trouble for him. You couldn’t fault him. He was a lovely, lovely man …”

He enjoyed life to the full and was enormously and rightly proud of his son Francis, who followed Ru into the nursery business and helped it go from strength to strength, and daughter Mimi. He had a gentle, all-encompassing love of life. He was generous and loyal, with a wonderful warmth. His distinctive and hugely lovable personality will be enormously missed by all those who knew him.

James Hanning

Adrian Simmonds had the general store on the west side of Market Square and was wonderfully placed to record the demolition of the Market Square Garage and the building of Thornberry Flats for the over 55s.

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The demolition of Market Square Garage and the building of “THORNBERRY” Flats

The Demolition of the Garage and Proposed Development of Flats

A meeting was called by the parish council, because there was a lot of opposition to the proposed development and the loss of the garage. On the evening of the meeting the hall opened with the parish council seated at a table in front of the stage, but the hall very quickly filled with interested villagers, so that the council had to retreat to the comparative safety on the stage. The hall by this time had filled up with very interested and angry villagers, so much so that the windows were all opened so that the people who could not get in, could hear and see what was going on from outside. Opinions were voiced. The meeting went on for a long time. The view was that the village was against the development. The result of course stands in the square for all to see, but Democracy had to been seen to be done. The then chairman of the Parish Council shortly afterwards emigrated to Australia.

This small exhibition shows a brief period of around thirty months in the late Twentieth Century which altered the character of the Market Square completely. I have included some earlier photographs of the Square for those of you that did not know it before the flats were built. The picture of the pub [with the two children outside] was The Lamb Public house, and the building on the end was at one time a Fish and Chip shop. It was demolished in the 1950s in order to build the Market Square Garage, which in turn was demolished in 1998/1999 for the erection of the Flats. These were offered for sale on the 30th June 2001.

After the garage was demolished there was a period of several months, when the soil was tested regularly because of contamination by oil and other garage waste from the previous 50 plus years. During this period, over forty large lorry loads of contaminated soil were removed and replaced with clean soil. The site was then passed as suitable for the building to start.

After the holes were drilled, each one had a frame work of reinforcing rods {which were welded together on site} lowered into it. Then cement was poured into the holes up to footings level. Then, of course, the footings were laid and the main structure was started.
After the pre-made floor of the first storey was installed, the building was taken up to the next level, and the same procedure was repeated for the top floor.

The Flats were offered for Sale 30th June 2001. As a small point of interest, the first occupier of the front ground floor flat was a member of a local business family, who had at one time a grocery shop in the premises which is now known as The Romany hotel. The wife of the second occupier of the same flat was the daughter of the landlord of The Lamb which stood on the site up until the 1950s.

The Flats and Skateboards
Shortly after the flats were in full occupancy, it was decided to add a pair of gates to the front of the arch, because of teenagers using the entrance to skateboard through the archway and across the small garden in order to jump onto the footpath at the rear of the property. This was before the skateboard ramp was built in the sports field.

These pictures show the work and expertise in building the flats (Thornberry). I also included some earlier photographs to illustrate the appearance of the square in the past. With all the changes that have taken place the square is still the centre and heart of the village. It is a meeting place for countless people and is used for special occasions such as the Golden and Diamond jubilee celebrations, and of course for the finishing post for the annual shirt race which always attracts a large crowd. The Morris dancers use it every Whit Monday. The annual fair comes every August, and of course Remembrance Day in November, and the lighting of the Christmas tree in December also take place in the Market Square.

Postscript.
Those of you that know me would have probably noticed that my surname was incorrectly spelt, on the posters. This is a common error as there are so many ways of spelling “Simmonds”. My grandfather left Reading in the 1920s with two M’s to his name leaving behind an H. G. Simonds with only one M, and a Brewery and a fortune! I still have only two Ms in my name, which prompts me to recall a situation in my shop.
Some years ago, I had an American lady who was a regular customer. After a few months she said to me would I take a cheque? To which I replied, “of course”. She made her purchases and proceeded to write the cheque asking me how I spelt my surname? I told her, and she said to me, “That’s interesting, I have five great uncles, back in the states all named Simmonds but all spelt differently. When they arrived in New York from Eastern Europe they embarked at Ellis Island and each went to an immigration officer to give their details and each officer spelt their name differently, so it ended up with five brothers with the same name, all spelt differently.”

The were first available to buy in 2002 and people have to be at least 55 years old to purchase them. The lane is Bell Lane, known by all long-time locals as 'back of the Bell' because the Bell Inn used to be where the Village Hall is today. The Village Hall was initially the WI Hall straight after the Bell closed before becoming the Village Hall when the cost of upkeep was just too much for the WI.

To the right of Cromwell House as seen from the road is The Old Forge, which was as its name suggests the site of a forge at one time but is now a private house, partly in Cheapside and partly in Church Street.