Nostalgia

In 1869 Joseph Osborn was mayor of Banbury. He had been elected in November of the previous year. Like many other holders of that office Joseph had a business background. Rusher’s Directory reveals that he was a wine and spirits merchant at 20 Horse Fair from 1850 to 1872. Significantly as mayor he was also clerk responsible for the town’s arrangements for the marketing of livestock.

In this week’s column, resident historian Brian Little remembers the iconic Winter Gardens in Banbury, where everything from The Rolling Stones to roller skating came to entertain.

In my book, The Changing Faces of Banbury, published by Robert Boyd in 1998, an especially significant chapter concerns Broad Street, which became widely known as the local home of ‘Co-opville’.

In 2019 Banbury Lions Club will be celebrating 50 years during which its members have brought ‘friendship and help to those in need’.

Crouch Hill is the highest eminence in the Banbury area. Its conical top is artificial: according Alfred Beesley in his History of Banbury built up by early Britons to provide a signalling point to the surrounding hill fortresses that are still visible from the crest.

An important part of the mayoral year has always been making speeches at annual dinners of a variety of town organisations.

Readers of provincial newspapers such as the Banbury Guardian cannot fail to have become aware of pub closures some of which have been averted by town and village communities rising to the challenge to save them.

In recent days, signs announcing the imminent arrival of the Michaelmas Fair have appeared close to main roads leading to the centre of Banbury.

In my column for September 6, I wrote about Arthur Hughes, an exiled Banburian. He had visited the town in 1939 in order to discover the extent to which it had changed since his early years at the turn of the 19th/20th century.

In a recent Banbury Guardian (August 23) Roseanne Edwards revealed the news that a Roman courtyard villa had been discovered on estate land belonging to Lord Saye and Sele of Broughton Castle.

Regular readers of the Banbury Advertiser in 1939 must surely have been drawn to a particular article in the edition of August 17.

On November 22, 1904 what can be described as one of the major sales in the early 20th century took place at the Prince of Wales in Grimsbury.

During January and February of 1901 the letters column of the Banbury Guardian was dominated by correspondence from a G Miller.

Recent editions of the Banbury Guardian show that July is a popular month for fetes.

Last week in this column I traced the origins of the Banbury Historical Society: paramount amongst the various influences was a popular course of lectures delivered by Dr E R C Brinkworth entitled New light on Old Banbury.

In the autumn of 1957 the well-known and much respected local historian Dr ERC (Ted) Brinkworth gave a series of talks under the heading ‘New Light on Old Banbury’ run as a university extra-mural class.

In his book Victorian Banbury Barrie Trinder has stated that in the nineteenth century the activities of village carriers were concentrated at certain public houses.

Back in the 1930s the editorial in the Banbury Advertiser was entitled Town Talk. It consisted of one or more comments on matters of topical interest.