Digital Archive: Journal No 27

Introduction to The Wychwoods Local History Society Journal No 27

We lost a very valued member and friend of Wychwoods Local History Society when John Rawlins died on 26 January 2012. He joined us in the very early years when he retired from teaching and thereafter became one of our best researchers and photographers of the Wychwoods in time of change. His knowledge and memory of this area and people, particularly of Milton where he was born, were very deep and he was always prepared to help with information when needed. He was a good speaker and the halls were always full to overflowing when it was a ‘John’ night. He enthusiastically joined in all WLHS activitles and served on the Committee, acting as Vice-chairman at one time. His health was not of the best and latterly he rarely appeared in public much to our loss – he will be sorely missed. For those who did not know him the article by Trudy Yates in Journal 24 published in 2009 will give you the measure of the man and why he was so appreciated.

John would have been one of the first to be out photographing the changing face of Shipton with the demolition of the village shop on the main road. The building served its purpose for just over a hundred years and Mary Dee remembers the life of the shop.

We also have more memories of another past resident of Shipton as Dorothy Brookes remembers what life was like as a child growing up with no TV, radio or discos, and in domestic service.

Another name that is now gone from Shipton is the Cross family who were weavers and parish clerks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, living in Gas Lane. Joan and Jack Howard-Drake have analysed a huge jumble of scraps of paper they left to describe the family and a way of life.

Another way of life that briefly existed in the area was the traction engines and their tackle of the Griffin family at Bruern Grange. We have a report of an article about them with an introduction by Bob Griffin’s daughter, Joy Timms. Bruern has featured in several of our recent Journals and there has often been confusiom about the original and later buildings on the site.

Joy has also wntten a brief h1story of Bruern Abbey with an extract from Jacksons Oxford Journal on the fire that destroyed the building in 1764.

To complete our Journal, Trudy Yates addresses the conundrum of WLHS and ‘What makes us tick?’

Trudy Yates, Joan Howard-Drake and Sue Jourdan

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