MAPPING BAMPTON: A JOURNEY IN SPACE AND TIME

This is mainly attributed to the removal of postenclosure hedgerows and the resultant creation of bare, arable ‘prairies’. While this landscape can still be an impressive experience that possesses the ‘big skies’ character much loved by the hobbyist photographers who camp at the perimeters of RAF Brize Norton in the hope of bagging a good shot, it certainly lacks the ecological or visual diversity which characterises some of the more richly-patterned landscapes around the settlement of Bampton itself. When we look closer to the core of the settlement the pattern of boundaries appears to be much tighter- the physical structure of boundaries is more secure (i.e. a prevalence of mature trees and wider hedgerows) suggesting the presence of much older planned enclosures.

The area to the South of Bampton is characterised by the River Thames, on approach to which, the land opens into very loosely enclosed water meadows. There is a distinct riparian character to this area, and anyone who walks between Bampton and the River Thames will experience a semi-open, pastoral landscape dominated by willows and alders, the former of which are often pollarded in the traditional manner.

MAPPING BAMPTON: A JOURNEY IN SPACE AND TIME

Polling willow on the Upper Thames 1875

MAPPING BAMPTON: A JOURNEY IN SPACE AND TIME

Many sections of this area have in recent decades been identified by the Forestry Commission as priority meadowland or improved grassland habitats. Chimney Meadow, at the very southeastern of our interest is maintained as a statutorily protected nature reserve and is also designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Managed since 2003 by Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, its landscape of wildflower meadows, wetlands and wading birds is a space that would have been recognisable to the most ancient inhabitants of this region as good summer grazing, a source of raw materials such as rushes and willow, and a bountiful larder of wildfowl. Certainly, the landscape here feels very different to ‘upland’ Bampton; perhaps to the modern eye it is somehow more ancient although this effect may be somewhat deceptive. In 2023 however the sense of isolation here is tangible. At a time when the UK’s population density (or rather its housing capacity) has become both a locally and nationally politicised issue it is interesting to reflect on how sparsely populated this landscape truly is. A 2017 study broke down the UK into a spatial resolution of 1km x 1km grids: of the 114,421 grids that make up the UK only 1784 have zero recorded inhabitants. While many of these grids are where one would expect to find them- the great wildernesses of Snowdonia or the Scottish Highlands- the reader may be surprised that a number of these grids are situated along the upper Thames valley, including one very near to Bampton itself.

There is now little in the way of ancient forest in this district, but some evidence of modern forest plantations. Aside from some small-scale commercial forestry the most notable modern/ local example is Shillbrook Wood to the south east of the village. It was planted in 2000 by the Woodland Trust alongside community volunteers as part of the Woods on Your Doorstep campaign. Of approximately 4 hectares, it is maintained for recreational use. The wood was planted with traditional species appropriate for the underlying geology including ash, oak, cherry, lime, alder, field maple and guelder rose as well as two pure blocks of osier and hazel, the latter of which were important commodities in this region’s economy from ancient times well into the early 20th century. As it matures over the coming decades Shillbrook Wood will be an excellent representation of what the ‘bush’ in ‘Bampton-in-the-Bush’ once looked like.

Bampton itself is a large rural settlement located in the south of its district, on a flattish and low-lying gravel terrace. It is important to understand the geology as it is intimately related to settlement activity in this part of Oxfordshire. A ridge of Cornbrash Limestone runs to the North of Bampton, and over time a number of villages have developed along it which include Filkins, Broughton Poggs, Kencot, Broadwell, Black Bourton and Alvescot. These are effectively ‘spring’ villages. Bampton however is very different. It is situated on an area further to the south where gravels overlie Oxford clay and alluvium to create terraces of raised land on what amounts as equally well-drained soil. There has been settlement on these gravel terraces since prehistoric times. This is indicated by the great number of Scheduled Monuments associated with these terrace gravels (as we shall see in a later chapter). Many of Bampton’s surrounding modern townships and indeed a few individual farms occupy these ‘islands’. Perhaps the most obviously identifiable by the layperson is the marked rise upon which sits the township of Lew.

Where settlements have evolved on these islands, bounded by flood plains, their form is nucleated and usually focused on a central space. This is immediately obvious in Bampton, where the

MAPPING BAMPTON: A JOURNEY IN SPACE AND TIME

convergence of the main routes into the town draws the eye toward the clear triangular open space of the present market place. As we will see later, Bampton had no surfaced road access until c.1770 and it may well be useful to begin thinking about the ancient settlement here as an essentially inward-facing settlement; an island in “the bush”.

Today, Bampton comprises a sizable loose-knit settlement with a distinctive historical character. There is a significant block of later estate development mainly confined to the north-east. The (now) contingent settlement of Weald extends as a linear settlement to the south-west and is subsumed into the modern settlement of Bampton at its north-east extremity. Growth to the south of the village is almost entirely constrained by the Shillbrook which enters the settlement from the north before turning east- an underscore to the main settlement.

Bampton’s nearest neighbours include Aston, situated to the east on flattish water meadows north of the river Thames. Aston has a relatively compact form with some later growth to the east. The detached hamlets of Cote, Shifford and Chimney lie off to the east, the latter two of which read as little more than concentrations of settlement around a single farm, although Cote is a little more substantial and has a distinctly linear character. These settlements were once part of the parish of Bampton.

To the north is the settlement of Lew. It is a curious settlement situated in the transitional zone between the limestone wolds to the north and Bampton’s Thames vale to the south. Lew has a very fragmented form which may now most easily be interpreted as linear and associated with the modern A4095, but was probably much less so in antiquity. Today it comprises a handful of farms and houses together with a 19th Century century church. It is a difficult settlement to characterise.

To the west of Bampton is the village of Clanfield. It has a very distinctive form, with a compact core to the north, a ‘tail’ of linear growth tapering away to the south along the A4095 towards the ancient Thames crossing at Radcot. Unlike the other settlements mentioned above, Clanfield has no historic administrative or ecclesiastical connection to Bampton, so will not be discussed further in this study.

2 Characterising Modern Bampton

Our first stop in our journey into Bampton’s past is not a map, but another aerial photograph. But this time there is some justification for using this resource. This is an example of a series of photographs taken by the RAF in 1946. The RAF initially conducted aerial reconnaissance flights across the UK for military purposes during the Second World War, but they were continued in peacetime once their value for topographic surveying was recognised. By the end of the war the art had been perfected and the RAF had cameras with a focal length of up to 40 inches- a technology capable of capturing decent images of traffic on the street from 35,000 feet. With the correct optical viewer the images could be viewed in primitive stereoscope- buildings appeared in 3D. Soon after the conflict ended, the requirement for updated ordnance survey mapping became obvious, given the scale of damage to towns and cities and the huge effort required to plan for postwar reconstruction. So the government tasked the RAF to set up Operation Revue; a national photography programme that ran from 1944 to 1950 and aimed at creating a substitute for the pre-war Ordnance Survey maps that nobody could contemplate being re-drawn by conventional means in anywhere near the time-scale in which they were needed.