Alvescot Village 1960

We came to Alvescot by way of Bampton and a deceptive humpback bridge that almost shot us through the car roof. We met no-one between Bampton and the post office at Alvescot, our first call.

Mrs. Joan Eyles, whose husband is sub-Posmaster and clerk to. the very active parish council (which now has the first woman member in its history), is the village's first woman representative on Witney Rural District Council. She confirmed our impression that

Alvescot was a deserted village but only in the daytime: "It's now a dormitory for the nearest town or factory."

Mrs. Eyles showed us an 1851 directory which gave the Alvescot population as 375, with 50 children at the local school. In those days, the village was self-contained, with work for three carpenters, shoemaker, blacksmith, mason, tailor, butcher, baker. Only candlestick-maker seemed to be missing from the list.

Population Down

By the last census, the population had shrunk to 267. The blacksmith's forge was pulled down a few years ago. The Church of England infants' school now has only 21 chil dren, including two Americans: the teacher, Miss F. L. Thornton, told us that all but seven of her pupils came from nearby Black Bourton.

With the exception of a goahead firm of haulage contractors (a small Alvescot schoolboy whose grandfatther founded it said proudly that he was going to carry on the business when he grew up), farming is the only local industry. But if

community life dies in Alvescot, it will die hard.

"Last September, we opened the Village Hall which we built ourselves," said Mrs. Eyles. "Personally, I consider it has greatly livened up the village. It is used at least twice a week. We have fortnightly dances, monthly whist drives, bingo every week. We raised £71 there for the World Refugee Year." '

Done its Job

There is a thriving Scout troop with its own headquarters and a youth club meets weekly in the hall.

" I would say the Village Hall had done precisely what village halls are supposed to d0 : it has livened up the place and given some entertainment to the

young people, helping to prevent this drift to the towns," said Mrs. Eyles.

Similar help came when a branch of an Aylesbury mushroom-growing firm opened at Elmswood Farm, Black Bourton, giving work to eight women and seven men from the district.

Bombers Nearby

This "40,000 square feet of mushrooms," as the manager, Mr. Ivor Dudley, described it, flanks the huge Brize Norton air base (whose landing lights at one point straddle the road out of Alvescot). When we called, a big bomber stood not 100 yards away from the warm mushroom sheds.

Growing mushrooms, in trays (up to six crops a year) or shelves (three crops a year) of compost, is a fairly big business all over teh country” said Mr Dudley. The plant at Elmswood Farm was doubled last year.

Teacher's View

Back in Alvescot, we called on Miss Elizabeth Mitchell, who lives alone in a cottage at Lower End. A teacher at the village school for 30 years or more, Miss Mitchell is "one of the village's oldest natives."

We talked about the huge elm tree ("certainly more than 300 years old," is the general estimate) which the council -decided to lop before it fell on its neighbour, the bus shelter. "The Blind House, where they kept the drunks, used to be near there, but it's gone now. And Shill House.where there was a Kings room--Charles II hid there-that's gone," she said.

"There are no craftsmen left in this village. My brother (a hurdle- maker who died recently) was the last. What we want in this village is a museum of village crafts, so that the children don't forget."

We'll leave the last word with Mr. William Brind, a dairyman of Manor Farm, Black Bourton, whom we met on the way home. Mr. Brind was busy hedge- laying.

" This must be a dying craft," we said, as we watched him. "Not many young people can do this ? "

Mr. Brind paused. " They can." he said. " But they won't."

[i]Story by

[i]PETER SYKES
Pictures by

[i]PETER HEWITT

Mystery Eathworks

Old COURT is a rough pasture, lying just north of Alvescot church.

It-has never been ploughed for it is still scarred by a great rectangular earthwork some four feet deep and there are traces of what may be old gravel diggings.

No one knows what the earthwork is. Local legend says that King John had a hunting lodge there and the name of the field does seem to imply some royal connection. Experts, however, say that he did not have a lodge in Alvescot, but they are unable to give a precise alternative.

Another legend says that there was once a battle in Old Court and that a chieftain who was killed is buried in a mound at the north-east corner of the field. where a huge cherry tree stands, proudlv displaying a girth of over s- ,seven feet

But maybe the mound is just Part of the gravel workings and the cherry tree may have grown from a stone left there by a workman while he was eating his dinner.

That there was a large building in Old Court is borne out by some enormous stones which are built into a cottage wall nearby. One of these measures 9ftx4”by2ft by1ft. 2in. and is much too big to have been cut for a cottage wall or to have been brought from afar- it must have been lving about when the cottage was built and surely a stone of that size must have been in a building of some inportance.

Old Court, particularly outside the rectangular earthwork, is full of pottery fragments which have been identified as " Early Medieval," which would mean that the area was inhabited in about King John's time, even if not by the King himself.

Leading south from it is the last remaining trace of what might have been an avenue or the line of a road. The trees, many of which have now been cut down, are elms of perhaps 160 years of age.

Could they have replaced oaks which were needed in huge quantities for building ships for the Napoleonic wars? If so, when would the oaks have been planted? In about King John's time? It could be

so. & nbsp;

JOHN EYLES