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Ascott is a pretty little village in the Cotswolds, which has the advantage of
being not quite so pretty as other Cotswold villages such as Burford. This means
that all is peaceful and tourists pass us by no acres of car parks, no tea
shoppes or antiques shops.
Stone Age long barrows and an Iron Age camp nearby show that people have lived
in the neighbourhood for thousands of years.
Up until about 1874 there was an annual hunt at Whitsuntide in Wychwood Forest,
followed by a week of festivities during which the Ascott Morris men danced in
the local villages. With the ending of the hunt, their songs and dances began to
be forgotten. Early in the present century, a Mr Reginald Tiddy who lived in
Priory Cottage in the High Street collected them and taught them again to the
villagers, and the stationmasters wife made the costumes. In 1912 Mr Tiddy had
Tiddy Hall built in Shipton Road for dancing, singing and as a reading room.
Sadly, he died in action in France four years later, and is remembered by a
stone tablet in the wall.
There are no longer Morris men in Ascott, but a group from Oxford come once a
year and dance in Tiddy Hall, and a group in Stony Stratford have a dozen Ascott
Morris dances in their repertoire and sometimes perform them on the green.
One of the first Margaret Macmillan Clinics in the country was held regularly in
Tiddy Hall, providing free medical treatment for the children. In 1915 the
Workers Education Association started one of its earliest rural branches there,
which kept going until after the Second World War. Though only a wooden
building, it is still in use as a village hall.
On the green there is a tree with a seat round it, planted in memory of the
Ascott Martyrs of 1873. The National Agricultural Labourers Union was
attempting to raise labourers wages to 14 shillings a week, and some men
working for Robert Hambridge at Crown Farm, who were only earning eight to ten
shillings a week, went on strike. Hambridge brought in two non-Union men from
Ramsden, and about 40 local women tried to persuade them not to strike-break.
Hambridge took out a summons against some of the women, and they were sentenced
to prison with hard labour. Such was the outcry that the women were marched from
Chipping Norton to Oxford prison at dead of night, lest the rioters freed them.
After questions in the House of Commons they were released. Some say 3 each was
collected for them, some say 5, and some say Queen Victoria gave them each a
free pardon and a red flannel petticoat. Crown Farm, where the men worked, still
belongs to the Crown. A Country Store has opened in one of the barns.
The west end of Ascott is known as Ascott Earl (after an Earl of Worcester) and
the east end as Ascott dOyley (after Roger dOilly who was granted it by
William the Conqueror; Rogers brother built Oxford Castle). Each part
originally had a fortified castle, with motte and bailey. The one off Shipton
Road was probably wooden, and only earth mounds mark the site. The other, off
the Chipping Norton road, was built for defence purposes in about 1129, with a
stone tower 35 ft square. It was pulled down in 1160 when a garrison was no
longer required. The manor house stands within the bailey of this castle, and is
partly 12th century. In a dressing room, people have smelled a sweet perfume as
a ghost passes by, and some have seen a lady in blue.
The church of Holy Trinity is mainly 12th century, and quite small and simple.
The six bells in the tower are rung regularly for services. At the back of the
church are five wooden pews, possibly the oldest in Oxford-shire. These were for
the old and sick, whence may have come the saying The weakest to the wall
everybody else had to stand. The series of round depressions near the priests
door are believed to have been made by parishioners sharpening their arrowheads
after the service.
Corner House and the village shop used to be the Churchill Arms, where
stagecoaches from Worcester to London stopped to change horses. When the railway
came in the 1860s, a new Churchill Arms now Wychwood Court was built near
the level crossing. The original signal box is of wood and brick about the
only sign of the brickworks that was once in Ascott. It now has closed circuit
television so the signalman can control the level crossing three miles away at
Bruern.
The Swan is the only remaining pub. On Monday mornings it doubles as a post
office, and you can lounge in comfortable seats while waiting to be served your
pension from behind the bar.
The school, on the green, was built in 1873, replacing a building of 1833. In
1989 it became the (private) Windrush Valley School mysterious, because
Ascott lies along the beautiful river Evenlode, not the Windrush.
In the grounds of the Old Rectory up London Lane, there is a pond supplied by a
spring, which was the source of piped water to the village until 1966.
With converted barns, infill building and council houses, the village has
expanded considerably since the Second World War. It now has 501 inhabitants and
198 households. But old inhabitants say the population has remained much the
same: where large families with lots of children used to be crammed into small
cottages, one or two people live now.
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