Bampton Architecture - Volume 1

Bampton Architecture

£12

Volume One

by Gilbert Marsh with photographs by Michael Cooper A Bampton Archive Publication

A Bampton Archive Publication

First published in February 2007

Revised August 2015

BCA-27/A - August 2015

Bampton Archive Presents

Bampton Architecture Volume 1

By

Gilbert Marsh with photographs by Michael Cooper

A magnificent front door and beautiful brasswork.

A porch with an original appearance.

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A charming doorway and Lion’s-head knocker.

The wide old door of a farmhouse in Weald. The knocker hides a narrow postal slot, making delivery of today’s magazines difficult perhaps.

A doorway on the south side of Bridge Street.

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A handsome front door in the High Street.

Many photographs have had to be taken at odd angles because of parked cars. Parked cars are a fact of life.

The importance of a front door is increased by a bold canopy - comforting in wet weather.

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This entrance should be recognizable as nearly everyone has used it. The new surgery building at Landells is a good example of how to fit in with a village setting and not offend the eye.

The charming Gothic garden gate in the boundary wall of The Grange.

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A closer look at the Manorial front door, which was a later addition from elsewhere.

The top of the stone entrance portico which faces the gateway at Weald Manor.

Even a narrow frontage garden can be a great addition to the street scene.

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A pointer to the height of the July 2007 flood water at Mill Green.

One of the many alleyways which cross-cross the old village. Probably they were old rights of way preserved in what was then new building of stone-walled passageways.

The original gateway between Weald Street and Bampton Manor. The village of Weald extends up the south side of Bridge Street and the west side of Church View and its name reflects the forest which used to cover the area.

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Decorative wrought iron gates follow traditional craftsmanship.

These gates and pillars are not seen by many Bamptonians.

They are part of the caravan park off Weald Street, “The Paddocks�.

A mouse is carved on the front gate of Buckland Road cottage.

A cottage on Buckland Road.

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Autumn colours of creeper in Broad Street.

A recycled Victorian period stained glass screen which became the basis for a conservatory addition. The glass repairs were done by Mr. Gerald Paxton of Burford, a relative of Joseph Paxton.

Heraldry and stained glass above the entrance to Bampton Manor.

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The lowest portion of the east window, fine stained glass window in St. Mary’s Church.

A view of a sunny Bampton field seen through modern leaded lights. The spire of St. Mary’s is just visible.

A view from a bedroom with a tiled sill.

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The pleasure of an interior with a view to a sunny garden.

A fine run of stone mullioned windows.

The view from Eagle House eastwards up Rosemary Lane.

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A stone quatrefoil window built into a flank wall and recycled from a demolished church in St. Johns Wood, London. It is surmounted by the stone head of what looks like a cherub, found in the garden of the site.

The wonderful attic space over the library which had at one time been a classroom. The decayed wooden staircase leading up to it was taken out in the late 1960s.

The old sitting room having either been built at a much lower level or having settled in damp ground, the problem of adding on is shown in the photograph.

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The remaining original timber framing that once formed the dividing wall between two separate dwellings. In the early Georgian period one large house was formed from four small ancient houses which were joined together, their roofs were raised and all refaced in stone to form one large dwelling in the High Street.

A well-used hearth from the 17C or earlier. This must have been an important house in Weald Street, with much traffic to the Thames at Rushey Lock until Radcot Bridge was built.

The floor level of this sitting room in Bridge Street is well below adjoining land, indicating age and settlement.

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The true cottage hearth beloved by Christmas cards.

A comfortable chair near the only fire was indeed a favoured position.

The warm heart of many a cottage is the stove. The functional design gives plenty of heat to the room and can be used for slow burning overnight.

A handsome Victorian fireplace with original tiles.

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A decorative cast iron fireplace front which was imported to Bampton and happened to fit the opening perfectly; probably a standard size.

The sitting room fireplace at Bampton Manor.

A drawing room fireplace from several sources.

The mirror from west Wales, the front from a kitchen in Battersea, London, the fireback from Shalford, Surrey and the slate hearth from Stanmore, Middlesex.

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The masonry fireplace in this drawing room is dramatic and impressive and fortunately in scale with the large room.

The five elements that go together to make this fireplace corner.

A bedroom fireplace.

Art mixing with cooking.

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A small deep niche in an interior wall of a house in the High Street. Originally intended to protect the open flame of the rush-light or candle from being accidentally knocked. Fire was the biggest threat to old timbered houses.

A fine array of saucepans add to a cottage kitchen.

Detail of the right-hand pillar of the fireplace at Beam Cottage (see next photograph), probably the oldest remaining hearth in the village. The stone is believed to be one support of a small Roman altar.

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The right-hand pillar of the fireplace at Beam Cottage.

One of the additions to the interior of Weald Manor, perhaps in the eighteenth century. This niche could well have come from a demolished mansion.

A typical late Tudor winding staircase approached from a sitting room door.

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Corn dollies and brass picture hooks make a wall composition.

An external view of a rebuilt garden extension and landscaped garden pool.

The garden extension seen above incorporating roof glazing to bring in plenty of south light.

A view beyond the paint brushes to the old Elephant and Castle pub in Bridge Street. Pubs so named often got their origin from the name “The Infanta of Castile�.

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A pleasant view of lawns and orchards seen through an arch in a stone wall.

Stacked flower pots, some locally made, decorate a Bampton garden and kiln studio. Bampton is fortunate to have many successful artists among its residents.

The difficult junction between thatch and brick at the chimney. Falling sparks have been the historical cause of many fires, even of whole villages, so what thatched roofs remain are precious.

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Thatched cottages are the senior representatives of a medieval world. Nearly all have the problem of how to roof over windows which stand proud of the deep eaves that thatching requires. It is indeed an art form.

Decorative agricultural additions are protected by the eaves.

Manorial grandeur in Bampton.

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A pebble path at the Manor.

A kitchen and dining room extension built on to the original house and fairly typical of recent building work in Bampton.

The studio addition built on to the corner of Weald Manor in 1908. The building conceals a steep change in ground levels.

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Waterloo House in Broad Street has almost disappeared under autumn creepers.

A substantial and beautiful Cotswold stone house near the site of the Mill in Bridge Street.

A house with unusual window proportions, because the width of the panes is greater than their height.

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Bampton enjoys many well designed street houses, as here in Bridge Street.

The cottages in Mill Green suffered from the two floods in Bampton in 2007 as badly as any. There clearly has to be a complete reassessment of how to deal with current climate changes.

The cottages at Mill Green, which took the violence of the Shill Brook in the flooding.

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A fine run of stone mullioned windows.

Ground floor stone mullioned windows.

A substantial house facing south into Lavender Square, once a public house.

There have been several such conversions to private use.

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This cottage at the north end of Market Square has small trees growing very close to it.

The old newsagents has been converted convincingly in to Bampton terrace architecture.

Simple terrace architecture with differing porches.

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A semi-detached pair of houses with varying materials and paintwork.

The Victorian cottages on Primrose Lane, Weald. They repeat the inspiration of the Model cottages of the Pugin period, originating with Pugin’s influence.

Model cottages inspired by Pugin.

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A typical post-war terrace in Bowling Green Close.

RAF Bampton Castle was a listening station but is now the Bampton Business Centre. These houses arrived with the creation of the base.

Typical two storied development on the north-west side of Bampton in the 70s.

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Typical recent development in a garden setting.

The Lavender Place flats, providing much needed accommodation near the centre of the village for those in retirement (off Lavender Square).

A little bridge over the brook near Ampney Orchard is a successful landscape feature.

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The Lanes development between Broad Street and Bushey Row is a most successful grouping of retirement houses where the gardens are communal.

A modern addition to Primrose Lane is this post WWII mobile home.

The garaging problem for the new houses was solved by a central rear courtyard approached under this covered link.

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A new row of stone houses permitted after a planning appeal, at the junction of the Buckland and Aston roads.

The turret staircase which joins the studio to the main house. This design is an ingenious architectural solution to the problem of building new against old. At the same time, the hexagonal shape provides interest to the junction and copes with the change in scale of the studio glazing.

A typical section of uncoursed stone walling in Bampton.

The photo pays tribute to the wealth of natural stone which Bamptonians enjoys. Note the generous amount of lime mortar in the illustration.

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Graffiti cut into the south wall of the Library in Church View. These marks, initials and dates, could have been cut by bored scholars waiting to get in to the old school house. Sadly, the stone face erodes a little every winter and soon there will be no traces left.

A stone panel built in the wall of a courtyard. The illusion of a regal lion comes out by photography, because everything is actually incised, not raised. The 200mm thick, 800mm square block was found lying face down in water at a stonemason’s yard in Oxford. It was the top left-hand block of six panels making up the royal coat of arms for Covent Garden opera house and was cut by a Scottish sculptor.

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The built-in ring for the tethering of horses at the junction of Bridge Street and Church View. Old photographs show this area packed with horses at the horse fairs for which Bampton was famed.

A little sculpture set in the flank wall of a house as the west end of Church View.

The protected stone was found in the ground by the builder when digging the foundations for the house.

The statue of St. John the Baptist in St. Mary’s Church, which fell through the roof in a storm, from one of the base corners of the spire above on January 25th 1990.

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The tomb of George Tompson 1603, St. Mary’s Church.

The font in St. Mary’s Church.

The Thomas Horde memorial, St. Mary’s Church.

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The plaque of the old Morland’s pub in Broad Street has been retained when converted to a residential use.

Part of the castle wall remains in the Gatehouse at Ham Court. It is an ancient part of Mercia’s defenses against the people of Wessex at Faringdon.

Bampton was in Offa’s kingdom of Mercia with the Thames as a frontier between it and Alfred’s Kingdom of Wessex. Bampton was rich and prosperous at this time due to being an important religious centre. The castle was built to provide protection against raids but although it was built to a very high specification it was never used for its purpose; by the time it was finished such threats had passed.

Part of the old castle wall which looks more like a Christian symbol than an arrow slot.

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Recycled stonework may have once been an arrow slit from Bampton Castle, but if so, vision and movement must have been very restricted in defence.

The Methodist Church in Bridge Street.

Bampton Baptist Church, off the High Street, which has a current planning application for a business use.

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The school sign.

Bampton C. of E. School near Bowling Green Close.

The remaining evidence of the RAF base on a map near the entrance.

Security at the entrance to the base, photographed in October 2007.

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Flowers and produce flow out from what used to be the village shop on to the pavement.

The well-used bicycle for deliveries from the village shop.

A view of the old village shop in which every imaginable domestic purchase was available.

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The view up Bridge Street towards Patrick Strainge, the butcher.

The new flats, Thornberry, frame the view south into Market Square.

The spire of Bampton Church appears in unexpected views far away.

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One of many pedestrian paths which connect the large area of recent housing development in the northeast part of Bampton.

Vivid tree colour seen in the High Street. Trees are so important to the village scene and we are lucky that so many survive in the larger gardens.

A superb topiary, steps and stonework, which accommodates a change in ground levels.

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Here are the true signs of an old cottage. This one is probably the oldest in Bampton and the right-hand jamb of the fireplace uses what is believed to be part of a Roman period altar.

The garden side of the same cottage with a pool and sculpture. It is likely that the larger first floor windows have cut through the old eaves level and have replaced smaller windows.

The original stone winding staircase in the same cottage; a wonderful survivor. Having no landings, such a stair is very economical in terms of floor space.

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The glory of a stained glass window in the church of St. Mary The Virgin, Bampton.

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Also at St. Mary’s, the south facing Norman stone door is perhaps our oldest and our best. It relates beautifully to the dignified and simple interior.

The west face of the Church of England school in Church View.

One can spot similar schools in surrounding villages.

The protected exterior of the Pavilion off the Buckland Road makes a fine new architectural composition for the village.

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The first view of Bampton centre from the south. The trees on each side of the High Street enhance the distant view.

The 30mph sign when entering Weald from the west. The denial of priority to incoming drivers is a welcome warning to roadhogs, but potentially dangerous when the signs cannot be read easily as in fog.

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It seems that this precious piece of the vast walls of Bampton Castle has been saved by originally being part of a gatehouse.

The last remaining rampart of Bampton castle. This was once formed from 16 towers and now almost nothing remains.

The huge barn at Ham Court. The barn is a reminder of the historic importance of getting farm produce under cover in winter, much needed for animal feed.

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The flooded foreground is a reminder of the floods of January and July 2007.

These horses are a reminder of their historic importance to Bampton. The Horse Fair photographs taken in the 1880s show the economic power of the farming community and may explain why Bampton had 14 Pubs at the time.

Bampton Library at the north end of Church View is a magnificent building in late Tudor style. It was built as the village school.

The additional chimney on the south side indicates the warmth needed in the adjacent class rooms near the Vesey room.

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Believed to be the oldest cottage in Bampton it shows external alterations over the centuries. The north front is set at an angle to Church Street and this may reflect the shape of the village square which it probably faced when it was built.

Bampton is lucky to have so many thatched cottages remaining as other villages have lost many through chimney fires. This cottage is part of the north side of the huge triangle that was once the Market Square.

One of the many narrow paths giving access to the centre of the village.

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The approach along Station Road from the east. The first view of the spire, towards which the road used to run before being diverted south.

An 18/19C frontage which is probably the original Broad Street before the main road was built.

The Bampton Surgery and in the foreground the recent extension and dispensary.

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A gracious unaltered Bampton farmhouse which represents a dwindling community. The traditional garden in the foreground grows both flowers and vegetables.

A small sculptured head set in a stone casing. Fortunately it faces north and away from the prevailing westerly rain. The appearance could well be Roman.

A “Plague Bowl� at Weald Manor in which it is said that food was left from surrounding villages for the people of Bampton during the Black Death. Then it was cooked in vinegar and distributed.

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The grove of yew trees in which the Plague Bowl lies. The land rises to this high point which was probably always above the surrounding water.

The old Elephant and Castle pub at the foot of Bridge Street, now converted to residential use.

Built at a low point near the Bridge, these buildings suffered from the July 2007 floods, like so many others.

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Simple terrace houses in Broad Street, but built in brick following the coming of the railway, when brick became cheaper than stone.

For a thatched heritagestandard cottage, this is typical except that it was once a pair.

The same thatched cottage showing the front porch that protects the entrance from rain.

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A much loved cottage interior where everything happens in the one space.

The modern Bampton by contrast, being the entry to RAF Bampton Castle, now disbanded.

The guard hut and military layout must remind many from the services of how they spent their days.

This track is the extension of Weald Street leading eventually to the Thames.

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The massive tower and spire of St. Mary The Virgin church, Bampton. The statue on the left of the tower is a replacement for that of St. John The Baptist, which crashed through the roof during the storm in January 1988.

Near perfect domestic Georgian architecture is seen in Lavender Square.

Queen Street displays good early 19C cottages.

Small front gardens are lovingly tended.

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The south footpath of the bridge

by Mill Green, where the wall was demolished during the July 2007 flood and is now rebuilt.

The water that did the damage here came down the road from the Clanfield direction, having wheeled round behind Ham Court. The Shill Brook could simply not take the load of rainwater.

Bridge Street seen from the Gallery in the Town Hall.

The War Memorial and the heart of the Market Square, where Bamptonians gather for one minute silence on Armistice Day every November.

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The facades of fine stone houses in the High Street.

They give cohesion to the village centre and contrast with the dispersed effect of so many modern buildings.

A fine detached house in landscaped grounds.

This sign in the High Street is a reminder of the days of coaching inns, before the railways took their main business.

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This faรงade has an Italian feel and seems to echo Palladian architecture. The front door to the Manor was once on this elevation but there is no trace of it.

This house is typical of the huge development in the 1980s of the northeast side of Bampton. These successful houses set in well-planned groups are new architecture for Bampton.

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A terrace in New Road from the 1960s.

A lovely pair of leaded lights on the south side of the library, dated around 1640.

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