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The Old School
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All this photos are
copyrighted
 V
iew of the school from across the
road
 Black Bourton main street
with the school on the left and the
vicarage on the right, Notice the old
Horse and Groom in the distance
 Black Bourton
school in 1922, Florence
Chapman nee
Townsend named these for me, she now
lives in Lechlade where she has resided
for the past 70 years, she is in her
90's now
This is the school in 1925,
unfortunatly I can find no one who can
name the children, all I know is
Dorothy Eustace who was my Aunt and
lived in Alvescot, If you or you know
someone who can name them please
contact me via the contact link on the
left
Note you can see the church in
the back ground, so this must have been
taken in the school playground, and
there is no houses between the school
and the church, where as the is not 4
or 5
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PROFILE Mrs Florence
Chapmanback
It is most likely that very few people
living in Lechlade today will have
great knowledge of Mrs Chapman, who
will be celebrating her 93rd birthday
in January 2006, and who has lived
quietly in the village for nearly 70
years.
It wasn’t always a life of ease and
comfort though, for Florence, who was
born at Blackbourton in 1913, and had
to grow up in conditions which were far
removed from the comfortable times we
are able to enjoy today. She had two
sisters, both of whom are now dead. Her
schooldays were spent at an all-age
school in Blackbourton, which she left
at the age of 14 when the school was
transferred to Bampton.
There was little excitement to be
experienced in the village at this
time, but Florence enjoyed the times
when she attended the church with her
mother, and where she often found
herself walking in the churchyard. It
was here that romance entered her life.
She noticed, one day, that she was
being observed by a young man who was
bold enough to speak to her. He said he
had “had his eye on her for some time!”
She married Albert Chapman in 1934, and
subsequently had two sons and a
daughter; one son lives in California,
one in Lechlade, and her daughter in
Cricklade.
Albert Chapman had been born in Wales,
where times were hard and employment
difficult to obtain. He was an
excellent scholar, and was destined for
higher education, but his parents were
not able to provide the financial
support he needed, so along with the
rest of the family he later left Wales,
making his way to Warrens Cross, near
to Lechlade. His brother actually
walked the journey! The only employment
available was farm work, which Albert
found in Alvescot, and where Florence,
later, went to live with him.
Eventually they found a cottage at Kent
Place, in Sherborne Street, Lechlade.
It was in 1951 that another move took
place, this time to the new housing
area of Gassons where the facilities
were far superior to those endured in
the Kent Place cottage. A memory from
those days, however, which Florence
happily recalls, is the kindness shown
to the children by the soldiers during
the war who were billeted in other
cottages nearby. After the war, in
which Albert served in the RAF as an
electrician, he was employed at Smith’s
Industries, Witney, until in 1969 he
retired because of ill-health, sadly
dying in the same year.
There had been a further move, in 1961,
to a smaller house in Gassons Way;
Florence’s daughter, June, had left
home earlier, to be married, and almost
immediately after the wedding was
appointed as the youngest woman to take
charge of Arkell’s public house, the
Royal Oak in Lechlade. She served
there, with her husband, for 39 years,
retiring at the time of the millennium.
One high spot in her life, which
Florence Chapman recalls with great
pleasure, and satisfaction, is how the
playing field was obtained, for the
benefit of the public. With the
building of Gassons Road, a large field
area had been split in two, with one
area for house building. The owner of
the field agreed to hold the sale of
the other half when two sisters in the
village, named Wellen, suggested that
it would be suitable as a recreational
area for the people of Lechlade.
Through regular village collections the
money was eventually raised, and it is
due to the sterling efforts of the
people, at that time, including
Florence Chapman, that everyone in
Lechlade today is able to enjoy the
many pleasures provided by the
facilities.
Florence has lived her life well, and
is very happy, still, to be living in
Lechlade where she can regularly attend
St Lawrence Church, her Christian faith
having been instilled, as a young girl,
by her mother.
Jack Smee.
Florence, her daughter June, grand-
daughter Rachel & great-grandson,
Ashley. back
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