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Gainfield
Gainfield maps
Historic maps of Gainfield and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Gainfield maps
Gainfield photos
We have no photos of Gainfield, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Stanford In The Vale| Buckland| Longworth| West Hanney| Faringdon| East Hanney| Grove| East Challow| Kingston Lisle| Uffington| Childrey| Radcot| Wantage| Bampton| Woolstone| Letcombe Regis
Gainfield area books
Displaying 1 of 7 books about Gainfield and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Gainfield
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Oxfordshire memories
Strange But True
My father was a bank manager in Faringdon in the 1970s and managed the accounts of the Pusey estate and the Hornby family, owners of the estate. On one occasion, during an annual fete, Dad was asked to act treasurer of the fete. He asked me to help him. On that day, two Puseys were in Pusey village.
My Pusey family was based in Oxford, where my paternal grandfather was employed in the University. His father was, I believe, a butcher in the St Clements area of the city.
In my father's family were six children, three sisters and three brothers, of which my father, Frederick was the fourth child. There were five Pusey cousins: John (son of Guy and still lives in Oxford), me, (son of Hugh and now living in Somerset), Michael (sadly deceased), Peter and Anne (sons and daughter of Harold). Peter lives in Malvern and Anne lives in America. There were also two non-Pusey cousins: Mary and Jane (daughters of Vera Heath, the youngest sister... Read more
The Pound
I used to live in The Pound at Goosey. As a pub it seemed massive to me when I was a lot younger, now I realise that in fact it was really small and intimate for a pub. I used to love the huge open fireplace, the smell of the wood smoke mingling with the smell of the beer. I used to spend many sunny afternoons exploring the village green with its ponds and marshes, fallen trees to climb, secret places to explore. As a child it seemed like an extremely safe and wonderful playground and I have never felt the same about anywhere else I have lived since.
I Too Lived at The Pound
When I lived at the Pound I was a lot younger and at 28 took the licence of a closed rundown empty pub called The Pound, that morning I pulled my first pint in a pub in Oxford for the Oxford Mail to get a look of the new landlord of The Pound, ‘a recipe for disaster’. That night I pulled my first pint for real and handed it to the customer, he said "Can you squeeze a double scotch into that?". Looking at the foaming head and thinking making money was going to be easy if they all do this, I said "Yes!". He handed the pint back to me and said "Well, fill the glass then!". A lesson well learned. A couple of months later we decided to have a lamb roast. On the night some of the students I lectured during my proper job, came to help, we offered lamb and real sausage hot dogs, during the evening one of my students gave a man a sausage in... Read more
Free's - Post Office And Grocery, Longworth
Having spent the first seven years of my life in Longworth, I remember Free's shop vividly. The Frees were friendly, welcoming people. Mr Free had curly hair and wore a tan-coloured kind of overall-coat. Mrs Free wore glasses on a chain. They ran the Post Office and sold all kinds of groceries and household goods, but I remember it for the sweets and ice creams – my favourite was a block of lemon mousse that you ate from a rectangular wafer cornet.
The sweets we enjoyed from Free's included Barrett's sherbet fountains and 'Jamboree Bags', which contained a novelty gift, a lollipop and lots of pastel-coloured, powdery-flavoured sweets, plus some toffees wrapped in waxy paper.
Mr Free also did home deliveries. My mum would order her groceries in a red-covered notebook with a little window at the top with her name in it. Mr Free would deliver the order once a week, with all the goods packed into a large cardboard box.
We used to... Read more
Longworth Memories From 1950.
My grandparents were William (Bill) and Molly Free - my mother was their daughter, Barbara. For five of my earliest years, I lived in the building shown, although it did not look quite like that! The shop and house were (mainly) re-built by the Mansell brothers of Longworth, in the early 1960s. My grandfather was generally well liked in the village, and was a very kind man. Grandmother was the same, and she rode around the village on her bicycle every morning (excluding Sundays), delivering the mail. Later, my stepfather, Philip Osborne, joined the business, and took over all deliveries. Groceries were delivered to customers in many surrounding villages and our van was seen frequently running from village to village. The van was, from about 1954, painted and grained so that it appeared to be wooden and when I was living in Buckland, we would form a crocodile to walk to the canteen for lunch, on the day that Mrs. Preece was having her delivery, most of the children would knock... Read more
Orchard Gardens
In about 1972 we as a family moved into West Challow, although with being at a young age I hated it, since moving from Wantage and my friends this it seemed was in the middle of nowhere. I used to cycle most days to Icknield, if not then at least a lift was offered by one of my parents, although quite often I was having to walk home. We owned a Great Dane who I often walked either up the large hill leading out towards Letcombe and Childrey, otherwise I would walk him towards Mellors Garage where there was a small outlet and I would always purchase my ten cigarettes, as we made our way back towards the village along the winding road a patch of grass is where our dog should always stop, he was waiting for me to light a cigarette, on hearing the match strike the box he always knew this was the signal for our moving on. In those years I became the local paper boy,... Read more
Dance Family
For many centuries my ancestors came from this area, the latest person was my grandmother Daisy Dance who sadly passed away very young in 1938. If anyone has any information on her or my ancestors could you please let me know? My ancestors currently stretch back to the1600s. My mother Kathleen Edwards was born in West Hanney, not far away from this village, her father was William Thomas Edwards, he died in 1966, he was married to Daisy Dance in 1929 in Wantage.
