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Shrivenham
Shrivenham maps
Historic maps of Shrivenham and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Shrivenham maps
Shrivenham area books
Displaying 1 of 7 books about Shrivenham and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Shrivenham
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memories of Shrivenham.
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Downsview Estate
I believe that the photo is taken looking towards Shrivenham coming up Station Road. The next turning on the right is Charlbury Road and we moved into no 24 around 1965 - perhaps a bit before. There was still lots of building going on and I can remember getting my wellington boot stuck in the mud and falling over - did I get it when I got home! I remember the Coventrys who drove a green Ford Consul and lived in Coventry Close. Chris and Barry Colman lived in Charlbury Road and their dad had a 2 tone Vauxhall Cresta. We had a grey Austin A35 van and I can remember cutting my knee on the exhaust pipe trying to retrieve my football. We lived next door to the Rumbolds who had a huge boat parked outside the window which went down well with my parents.
Catharine Rose Oliver Pratt's Little School House
My mother, daughter of Dr. Oliver B. Pratt and Catharine Rose Winckley Pratt, operated a small primary school on her father's property prior to and during the Second World War. She and I have visited a few times in years past. I am trying to determine the exact name of her school. I also need to find out the name of the teacher's college she attended. This information will be used sometime in the future for her obituary. She currently lives in the Los Angeles, California area and is in failing health. She will be 92 in June and resides in her home of 35 years with her faithful corgi, Laddie, and a full time nurse. My mother has had a wonderful, eventful life and has returned to the British Isles many times to visit family and friends. She has never given up her British citizenship. Kindly write back if you have any information or would simply like to say hello to my mother, Catharine Silver. Sincerely, Joan Silver George
Wiltshire memories
2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment
My Father tells me that there was an airfield at Watchford and that the Paras used it as a drop zone in the 1950's. Taking off from Abindon, they would drop at Watchfield. My Father did his night drop here and said that the staff on the ground would leave the hanger doors open with the lights on so that the young paras could just see enough to assess how much the wind was making them drift. Does anyone have photos of this aspect of lift in Watchfield. There is no mention of Watchfield in current aeronautical charts. Your Watchfield, NAAFI Corner photograph suggests some military ties. I would be interested to learn more.
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
Paras at Watchfield in The 1950s
Yes, I lived on the Watchfield housing estate from 1952 to 1953. Large numbers of paras and their equipment were dropped regularly at the airfield. Trainees jumped from large silver barrage balloons, but experienced paras from aircraft, often dozens at a time. The equipment canisters, jeeps, etc., came down with colour-coded parachutes. It was famously one of the sites used in the making of the film "The Red Beret", sometimes retitled "Paratrooper", starring Alan Ladd, Leo Genn & Harry Andrews. There was a small Army base nearby where my father, a REME staff-sergeant worked maintaining all the paras' equipment, such as the sprung-bases the jeeps landed on. A few years ago, I met a retired SAS chap who told me he had done jumps from a Blackburn Beverly aircraft over Watchfield around that time. There was no Watchfield School in those days... we Army "brats" had to walk or bus into Shrivenham... older kids went to secondary school in Farringdon. For the Coronation, there was a huge party in the... Read more
Paras
Hi,
My father was stationed at Arnhem Camp in the 1960s, he was a paratrooper. The Paras at Watchfield were 16th Parachute Heavy Drop. I attended Watchfield Primary School and have fond memories of my time there, two teachers stand out in my mind, Mrs Late and Mr Biggs. In my day the village had a Jet petrol station and next door to that a small shop called Smiths, the shop was managed by Mrs Paige. Up by the Eagle pub was the Post Office and a shop called Geoffries. Watchfield was a great place to live for a young boy and we would often go "all the way to Shrivenham" (a distance of a mile or so) or wander around Beckett Lake and the R.M.C.S (Royal Military College of Science)
Great days.
2nd Airborne Company RAOC
Hi I was at Arnhem camp in 1958/59. This was where the heavy drop platforms were rigged with Landrover+trailer, before being transported to Abingdon airfield. There they would be loaded into a Beverly aircraft (with the boom doors removed). The RAF would then fly back over Watchfield and drop the platforms on the DZ at Arnhem Camp. I now live in South Australia, on a trip back to the UK in 2009 it was sad to find not much is left of the camp, but it was good to have a pint in the old pub. Happy Days.
