When Lloyd Hughes Owens created a series of albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s there were people alive who could remember seeing Fred Able in Bampton with his little cart, two donkeys and his dog.

Photograph of the Horse Fair looking west down Bridge Street. Percy Hughes was the licensee and he also had the butcher's shop next to the Horse Shoe inn. There was a devastating fire at the inn in 1925 and the building was gutted and rebuilt in its present position. Note the window protection of hurdles to stop the horses putting their heads through the glass. White discs on the horses' rumps show they have been sold. There is a large group of horses tethered outside the high wall that faces Church View. Note the car outside the butchers shop.

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

Series of Photographs taken early 1980 featuring some of the machinery on display. The photos are described as follows:
BA40FA~1 - Ploughing with teams of 3 bullocks, young boy leading the front bullock and a ploughman on the reins. Each team pulled a single furrow plough.
BA2357~1 - Mr Fred Hornsby at the front of the combine. Fred worked for John Henly on Bampton Deanery farm and in later years for his son Roy. This picture approximately 1980.
BA0C0D~1 - Detail of a traction engine. There would have been one at opposite sides of the field and the implement, such as a plough or potato drill, would be pulled from side to side by the steel hawser seen here under the engine. The engine provided the power to turn the cable drum to wind in the cable. Originally the engine would have been fired by solid fuel but many were later converted to run on oil.
BABDA1~1 - Douglas Read, OBE born 1926 taking part in a ploughing match. Doug got his MBE several years after this picture was taken and it was for services to ploughing. He has was national ploughing match champion more than once and in later years was a judge for the High Cut class at the Fairford, Faringdon, Filkins and Burford Ploughing Match. (Known to many locals as the 3Fs and a B).
BA4883~1 - The driver of a plough being drawn across the field by a traction engine at the Fairford, Faringdon, Filkins and Burford Ploughing match.

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 with these animals at the south end of Church View. Notice that the ladies also came out to see the horses making it a spectacle and event for all to enjoy.

The Horse Fair in Bridge Street looking east. At one time, it was one of the larger horse fairs in the country. Boys with barrows collected the horse dung for sale. The Wheatsheaf became the post office in 1972 and a private house in 2010 when the post office moved to the middle room of the Town Hall. The three semi-circular windows in the first floor of was the HSBC bank (in 2014) and Patrick Strainge butchers have been altered at some point to look like their neighbouring upstairs windows.

Horses in Bridge Street outside the Horse Shoe

Images of Bridge Street in 1988 supplied by Andrew Hilditch

Photograph of Oil Painting painted by Hilda Kent showing Arthur antique shop