This ledger is 130 pages of wages for employees at North Street Farm, Aston,
AE Townsend was employer, and listed each week were Albert Fox, P Dewe, J Dewe, K Dewe and Mrs Harris.
Note from Margaret Josephs 2023 the sender of the ledger
North Street Farm, Aston, stood on the Witney edge of the village and comprised the farmhouse and adjoining cottage, duckpond, or¬ chard and lovely walled vegetable garden, together with farmland. A small development of designer houses now occupy the site.
The farm was owned by three generations of the Townsend family and Mollie, granddaughter of the original owner, was my Godmother. Family lore says that he bought the farm with money made in the South African diamond mines, but as with all family tales, I have no idea if that is true.
My great-grandparents, Thomas and Amelia Fox, both buried in Aston churchyard, lived in a labourer’s cottage in the market Square, where modem houses now stand. Water came from the well and at the end of the garden, through the chicken run was a Cotswold privy. As a child I hated going through the run as they all rushed towards you clucking madly, hoping to be fed. I’m still not fond of chickens!
Great Uncle Albert lived with my great-grandparents, working as a labourer on the farm, and is the A. Fox in the accounts book. For at least 20 years Mollie and Uncle Albert were a couple and part of the family until Bob Powell arrived on the scene from the North of Eng¬ land. How he originally connected with Mollie I don’t know as by then I was married and away from home. I only heard second hand about the rows that caused, but Mollie married Bob and became Mrs Powell.
My contact with Mollie was limited for some years, but when I moved to Bampton in 1994 we spent some happy times re-connecting until she died in her 90s. I salvaged the accounts book, diligently kept by Mollie in her handwriting, from her effects, ( Mollie kept every¬ thing) hoping it might be of local interest and as a record of bygone times for agricultural workers.
Margaret Josephs 2023

Reg Rouse with box of homegrown veg

Newspaper article about Organised crime groups stealing heavy machinery & tools from farms including Tim Hook from Cote lodge Farm August 30th 2017

The Rouse family in Bampton

Don & Mary Rouse celebrate 60 years of marriage

Bernard Dafter, circa the mid 1980s, New Jersey USA. Bernard's family came originally from Cricklade, where his family had lived since the 1700s. Just after Bernard was born, his family moved to Bampton. His father had been a farm manager in Cricklade and it is thought that he moved to Bampton to manage Home Farm, which was later purchased by the Rouse family. Bernard's brother George was much loved in Bampton being involved in Bampton Town football. Most will remember him as the village postman. In 1937 when Bernard was living in one of the cottages- since demolished- in Lavender Square, he married Phyllis Silman from Black Bourton. They later emigrated to Canada although Bernard still made trips home to Bampton.

Photograph of Martin Barber & Gordon Gough with some Milk Churns in 1970

Bert Whitlock & George Smith at the front

Don Rouse on the 'Baby' Fordson

Don Rouse, Terry Rouse & Bill Daniels at Home Farm