INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

Visible on mapping, and in aerial photographs, is some of the more informal 20th century settlement in Weald. There are a number of Traveller and Travelling Show people families living in West Oxfordshire on a range of specifically approved sites throughout the District and also in bricks and mortar. Modern strategic planning has a role to play in facilitating the way of life for Travellers, not least in ensuring there are appropriate sites, in suitable locations, available to meet their needs and, from which they can access education, health, welfare and employment infrastructure.

No appreciation of Bampton’s development through time could be complete without adequate reference to the longstanding private authorised Traveller site at The Paddocks, Weald.

Other informal settlement patterns that have become established landscape features can be found to the south of Primrose Lane, Weald, where the development of St Mary’s Court as a caravan site established in 1968 and visible on the 1970 aerial photographs of the area. Judging solely on stylistic grounds perhaps I was witness to one of the last remaining homes dating to the site’s inception being finally and lamentably removed in 2022 without any concerted effort to record its passing. The brutal process of the destruction of a structure, no matter how insignificant invites the reader to reflect on the nature of change as it is experienced in the moment.