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Ashbury books (11 available)
Ashbury memories
Read and share memories of Ashbury and Oxfordshire inspired by Frith photos
Fire at The Rose and Crown
I was four when my family moved from London to Manage the Rose and Crown in 1940. The Rose and Crown was then about four hundred and fifty years old. After six months there was a devastating fire which destroyed the whole of the thatched part of the hotel and part of the building which is in Church Lane. The cottage immediately opposite across Church Lane was also burnt down. The fire started during the evening and as it was war-time it was important to put it out as soon as possible it could be seen for miles. Fourteen fire engines attended.
I was in bed and I called out to my mother for a drink. She came upstairs with ...read more here
Contributed by First Name Last Name
Oxfordshire memories
Fire at The Rose and Crown
I was four when my family moved from London to Manage the Rose and Crown in 1940. The Rose and Crown was then about four hundred and fifty years old. After six months there was a devastating fire which destroyed the whole of the thatched part of the hotel and part of the building which is in Church Lane. The cottage immediately opposite across Church Lane was also burnt down. The fire started during the evening and as it was war-time it was important to put it out as soon as possible it could be seen for miles. Fourteen fire engines attended.
I was in bed and I called out to my mother for a drink. She came upstairs with ...read more here
A memory of Ashbury contributed by First Name Last Name
A foreigner's memories
My other half and I are having a great time here, in Woolstone at the foot of White Horse Hill for nearly 4 years now. I can only recommend this charming little village to anyone who wants to have an idea of the typical English countryside. Worth a visit for all nature lovers. You are always welcome here.
A memory of Woolstone contributed by Diana Horvath
Paras at Watchfield
Hi Alan, I can confirm that there was a military airodrome at Watchfield. I remember watching from a distance as learner paras jumped from a baloon basket. The baloon was let up to a great height and the men in the basket jumped out one by one.
Tony Stayne
A memory of Watchfield contributed by First Name Last Name
Extracts From Ashbury & Oxfordshire books
The Crown and Thistle
Hotel, first mentioned
in 1605, was a coaching
inn, and one of the town’s
best known ones. It is
still popular, and has the
truncated remains of its
inn courtyard within – we
see it here from the yard
end of the carriageway
through the building.
The further part of the
yard in this view now has
a roof supported on posts
to give shelter to tables
and chairs.
An extract from from"Abingdon Photographic Memories".
Skirting the modern
shopping centre, our
tour reaches Stert
Street, which runs south
towards the Market
Place; in the 1890s, it
was one of Abingdon’s
main shopping streets.
On the right, W H
Hooke’s bookshop (now
a jeweller’s) is the start
of the market place
encroachment. We are
looking towards
St Nicholas’s Church.
Until 1883, only its tower
was visible; then two
pubs which jutted into
the street, one on each
side, were demolished for
road improvement. Little
survives on the left today
apart from the two gables
of No 3, a 15th-century
house, partly hidden by
the horse-less cart.
An extract from from"Abingdon Photographic Memories".
The Fraternity of the Holy Cross built the two bridges, the
causeway across Nag’s Head Island, and then the long causeway
that runs south for over a thousand yards across the flood plain to
Culham, where they built a five-arched stone bridge between 1416
and 1422. Culham Bridge crossed the cut dug for Abbot Orderic in
1052 and known as the Swift Ditch. It is difficult nowadays to see
that quiet stream as the main navigation channel, rather than the
Thames itself, but so indeed it was for centuries. This view shows
Burford Bridge.
An extract from from"Abingdon Photographic Memories".
Stevens’s Boatyard
on the east end of
Nag’s Head Island also
incorporated the landing
stage for the Crown and
Thistle Hotel in Bridge
Street, some hundred
yards away from the
river. Note the elegant
steam launch tied up at
the landing stage with
its striped awning to
protect passengers. The
house between the trees
is Cosener’s House, built
on the site where the
cosener or kitcheners
lived – he was the
medieval official who ran
the Abingdon Abbey’s
kitchens.
An extract from from"Abingdon Photographic Memories".
A little further along the road
towards East Hanney is the
1930s Lamb Inn. Beyond it,
the pair of gables belong to
one of a crescent of 1950s
council houses. The drainage
ditch on the right has now
been filled in and paved over
as a footpath, and the area
in front of the pub is now
entirely a tarmac car park.
An extract from from"Abingdon Photographic Memories".