Richard Briers used to live in Carswell on the edge of Bampton and came to Adrian Simmonds' shop in the Market Square to buy his pet food. He is in the shop in this photograph.

n November 2015 eight products, including Patrick Strainge's Bampton Royal sausages were nominated for the Q Guild Smithfield Awards. Only 200 butchers in England can hold a Q guild aware at any one time so it really is a feather in the cap of our local butchers shop.
The Bampton Royal sausages were also a firm favourite with many members of the cast of Downton Abbey which was partly filmed in Bampton.

We were all sorry when Adrian Simmonds had to close his shop. It was like an Aladdin's cave inside and he aimed to have 6 new things each week. There is a letter to the Bampton Beam here from Toby Hopkins and one from Adrian himself.

The lovely black and white photograph shows Mrs Clark in her shop doorway. The shop was in the High Street on the north side almost opposite Bovington's wet fish shop.

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.

In the middle of this picture you can see Angela John Antiques on the left and Health Matters on the right. Both were in the Market Square. To the left you can just see the entrance to Market Square Garage. On the right behind the blue car you can see two windows of the what was the WI Hall and later became the Village Hall.

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.

John Temple ran this hardware shop for many years and it was brilliant. He always had a smile on his face and worked very hard to stock items that were really wanted.

This is the original Duttons shop in Bridge Street somewhere about 1880. Note at this time there were just two windows, not four that are there today.

In the second picture you can see George Dutton on the left and the 15 year old boy is William Mathews who a few years later bought the shop from George. George was not brilliant at running a shop but the Midland Bank established a counter within it which George ran and he was very good at figures. When the bank took over the premises next door to the butcher, he moved to be the fulltime teller and that's when he sold the shop to William.

The third picture was taken in 1960. Note the cycle rack stand. Dr Bullen's wife is on the left of the picture.

In the 1970s Fleur de Lys was a hair salon owned by Margaret Roberts. It is in Bushey Row. There were several owners after Margaret and it was later a video rental shop, a shop selling twee things for gardeners and a Physiotherapy Centre. Now it sells pottery (2021)