Fairford History Society

Family and Local History Day

A total of 190 people visited Fairford Library on November 16th for a very successful Family and Local History Day. Gloucestershire Archives, Gloucestershire Family History Society, Lechlade History Society and, of course, Fairford History Society were all represented and were able to help with many family and local history enquiries. FHS also mounted a display of local information and photographs. It was a most successful and enjoyable day and is planned to be repeated next year.

University of Gloucestershire

Two of our members were recently invited to talk to third year history students at the University of Gloucestershire about the Fairford Community Centre project and the formation of Fairford History Society.

Professor Tim Copeland, who was Heritage advisor for the project’s successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund, invited Margaret Bishop, the project co-ordinator, and Geoff Bishop, leader of the FHS Oral History group, to talk to students who were examining different ways in which material becomes public history. They told students about the history of the building, opened in 1738, and its pioneer role in education, and about the Heritage Days held to interest the public in the project and Fairford’s heritage generally. The two Heritage Days produced a large amount of historical material and made it clear that there is a great deal of local interest in the history of Fairford throughout the ages, although much of it was previously unrecorded and unavailable. This led to the foundation of the Fairford History Society and the starting up of the Fairford Archive to ensure that our heritage is preserved and not lost over the years.

Extracts from oral History recordings illustrated the point that oral recording captures a different sort of history, with more human reactions, and gives a fuller picture than written records alone.

Gloucestershire Local History Afternoon

Saturday October 7th 2006

Every year the County Local History Committee of the Gloucestershire Rural Community Council run a local history afternoon for all the member local history groups in the County. This year the theme was sport in Gloucestershire with each of the local history groups putting on displays about various aspects of sport in their areas. The winner for the best display was Cheltenham who mounted a wonderful display of photographs and memorabilia from the worlds of cricket, racing and rugby etc. FHS was attending for the first time and had a small display about Edwin Abbey’s Cricket Week held at Morgan Hall at the turn of the 20th Century. The Bryan Jerrard Award for the best local history article went to Mr R Sermon for an article about a medieval Jew of Tewkesbury who supposedly died when he fell into a cess pit and refused to be rescued on the Sabbath.

Two talks were also given, one on traditional archery by Hugh Soar who brought an excellent display of archery paraphernalia and the other by Dr Francis Burns who spoke about the Cotswold Olympick Games which was started in the Seventeenth Century by Robert Dover on Dover’s Hill near Camden. After a break of many years these Games are still held annually.

A new competition for the best local history society website was won by the well established Camden & District Historical Society with fairfordhistory.org.uk mentioned as a close runner up, an excellent result as our website has only been up and running since May of this year.

FHS's Cricket Display

Poole Family Visit Ancestor's Graves

Tuesday August 22nd 2006

The Poole family from Gloucester are able to trace their family back to the 15th Century. On 22nd August they made a special visit to Fairford to try to trace some of their ancestors. During their visit Fairford History Society assisted the Poole family to find the tomb of their ancestors Henry and Susanna Tovey who died in 1801 and 1806 and whose listed tomb is in St Mary’s Churchyard (see opposite). At least 11 other members of the Tovey family are also buried in St Marys and all of their graves were identified during the visit. The later Toveys were millers and maltsters at Fairford Mill.

Fairford Festival

Saturday June 3rd 2006

FHS had a local history display in the marquee showing some of the work we have produced this year and material from the Fairford Archive. There was special interest in the display about the Honeybone watch making family of Fairford. As a result FHS Occasional Paper 2 has been published

Roman Dig Visit

Friday June 23rd 2006

A group of FHS members were invited by Oxford Archaeology to visit the Roman dig at near Fairford at very short notice. The site covers three hectares) and was first identified as being of potential interest as far back as 1989 when a survey was done of the area which seems to have been inhabited from the early Bronze Age to Saxon times. There is clearly visible evidence of ditches surrounding the settlement, also 85 Roman burials some of high status, although not many grave goods were found. The site also shows evidence of a later Saxon settlement with a large number of grub huts which had sunken floors that were gradually filled after they were abandoned and can now be seen as areas of darker soil.

Antiques Valuation Day

Sunday May 14th from 2pm to 5pm in Fairford Community Centre

Fairford History Society was present at the Antiques Valuation session run by Fairford Primary School Parent-Teacher Association. Valuations were by Cotswold Auction Company. The display showed articles found in the archaeological survey at the Community Centre and about Honeybone clock making family whose descendants ran a shop in Fairford until the late 20th Century.

Fairford Community Play Project

Fairford has been very fortunate in obtaining a grant of £ 24,949 from the Local Heritage Initiative fund thanks to the hard work of Margaret Bishop and John Read who has masterminded the whole idea.

The Play will celebrate the heritage and history of Fairford’s pioneering role in education with a dramatic presentation of education in Fairford over three centuries. It will be produced in association with pupils and staff of local schools in and Fairford Amateur Dramatic Society, directed by Barry Kilgariff.

The story so far…………

The research is complete and been co-ordinated by Hugh Dudley and Nicky Clare from Farmor’s School with contributions from many other local history experts in the town and local history interviews. The amount of material acquired was so vast and in order to make a first class production it was decided to approach a professional scriptwriter, Stephen Deproust. Most of the material has now been handed over to him and in the remaining part of 2006 he will collaborate with production team to produce a first class script which will be completed by the end of December, 2006.

The LHI grant has enabled us to set up this website designed by Suzanne Jones of The Graphics Network in Fairford.

FHS has also used part of the grant to acquire a scanner, digital camera, video camera and tripod.

This equipment will help us produce our outcomes from the project: a book ‘Now & Then in Fairford’ in which FHS is fortunate to have Edwin Cuss collaborating, a film of the Play which will be produced on DVD and a film of making of the play. It is also hoped to produce a short film for the purpose of display to visitors to Fairford.

The Local Heritage Initiative is a national grant scheme that helps local groups to investigate, explain and care for their local landscape, landmarks, traditions and culture. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) provides the grant but the scheme is a partnership, administered by the Countryside Agency with additional funding from the Nationwide Building Society.