Village History Project
Monday, 07 February 2011
An update on the Village History Project by Bob Evans
I haven’t reported on our project for some months now. Progress has been steady, but a bit slow, given our film-director, John Tolson’s worldwide commitments. We’ve been busy of late mostly on the recent record. John has done some interviewing, especially with the wonderfully rich memories of Anneliese Dee, from Lincombe lane. However, it’s extremely sad that we shan’t now be able to talk to Lottie Miller, who was very willing to share her experiences of running the village shop etc, but died before we could arrange a meeting.Our other expert photographer, Ron Moss, has been active in capturing moments in the current life of the village. He has begun a record of activities at the primary school, and we have also received footage of some earlier school events. Earlier Ron had several sessions at Sunningwell School of Art, observing the teachers and students there, and that marries well with John’s interview of Roger Wiggins about the early history of the place in the 1970s when – thanks particularly to Roger – it could be saved from a sell-off and preserved as a village amenity. Since the building of the School of Art is, of course, the old location of the primary school, we have here the makings of a really good and joined-up episode in our DVD.
Other episodes remain to be set up in this way. But we have been preparing. When the better weather comes, we are ready to record the extraordinary history of the Sunningwell canal enterprise, with the help of Robert Sephton from Kennington, who has brought together evidence that the landowner, Sir George Bowyer, really did start works for a navigation from Bayworth to Kennington (via Long Furlong!) in the belief that he had found coal on his estate there. Bowyer was based at Radley Hall – and indeed the origins of Radley College are linked indirectly with the disastrous failure of his canal. Other elements in our project also tie us to Radley, a good example being the experience of both villages during the Civil War of the 1640s. Though it seems we may have been on opposite sides then, there is all the more reason for co-operation today.
Evidently the church – as structure and as institution plays a major part in our project. We have made a start on recovering the stories of some of those buried in our graveyard and commemorated inside the church. It has been particularly exciting to piece together the military career of Sidney John Heath-Smith, whose family lived on the Lincombe lane spur, and who served valiantly in the invasion of northern France and Belgium in 1944-5 before being killed across the German border just before the war’s end. We owe the detail of this information to Adam Asher, who teaches at Cothill school. Adam plans to find out more about the soldiers from the village whose deaths are recorded on the war memorial inside the church. Of course, I’d be very pleased to hear from anyone else who might like to help the project in any way.
Finally, one further related source for Sunningwell history: the church visitors’ book. There are regular comments in it from those who once lived here, married here, know of ancestors here, and the like. The other day I found an enquiry (and an email to contact) from a descendant of Joseph Lawrence, who was apparently born in the village around 1850, married a woman from Littleworth (presumably the one near Faringdon) called Welthen James, and settled in Reading where he became a labourer at the gasworks. A far cry from his great-great-grandson Adam, who began as a psychologist, but now operates in Germany as a stand-up comedian where – as his website reveals – he wows large audiences in both English and German. How do we weave that into the village story …?
Bob Evans
45 Sunningwell
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
(0) Comments •