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.
Photographs taken at the Thank You Party for the Vesey Room Sitters. A group of volunteers that sit regularly in the newly refurbished Vesey Room at the Old Grammar School and look after the gift shop, Following the popularity of Downton Abbey, Bampton now has coach parties of tourists. The new Chairperson Jennifer Dixon-Clegg in pale pink coat, also present Jill Wright, Janet Westman Andrew Lawrence,. Bernadette Clifton Pauline Harris, Sharone Attar, Jenny Chaundy, Nick Newland,
Photographs of the boards on display at the opening of the Lewington Room in The Old Grammar School on June 29th 2022. Text listing the planned and proposed events and exhibitions to be arranged in the near future. Lists of books and gifts available in the shop and a Description on "How it all started"
By 2019 all series of Downton Abbey had been filmed including the film of the series for showing in cinemas. Bampton Community Archive put on an exhibition of the filming in Bampton over the years in the Vesey Room. This room is withing the Old Grammar School and the doorway into this building off Church Close was used as the entrance for the Cottage Hospital in the series.
