Author: OCNTadmin

THE WALKING GROUP ENJOYS WHITE HORSE HILL

On a beautiful August morning, fourteen assembled in the National Trust car park for the second outing of our walking group. In the morning the National Trust Area Ranger, Andy Foley, gave us a fascinating guided tour of the ecology and history of White Horse Hill, the neighbouring hill fort (known as Uffington Castle) and Dragon Hill. We learned how the figure of the horse is re-chalked every year, a process which he was currently undertaking with a team of volunteers. In the afternoon about half the party enjoyed a circular walk down to Woolstone, and then up onto the Ridgeway.

Our next walk will be of five-and-a-half miles from the village of Ashbury, taking in Ashdown House, where Nicola Cornick, the well-known author, will give us a tour and an account of the House’s associations with Elizabeth of Bohemia, ‘the Winter Queen’. This will be on Wednesday 29 September. If you would like to receive details and have not already expressed interest in the group, do email jonathan.anelay@gtc.ox.ac.uk.

WALKING GROUP LAUNCH

In glorious weather on 11 June our first walk took place on the National Trust’s Coleshill Estate. Area Ranger, Joe Mayled, gave us a talk about the Estate; and then we set off across the water meadows and the landscaped parkland of the former Coleshill Mansion to complete either 2,4 or 8 miles, according to preference and stamina! The eight-milers took in the medieval tithe barn at Great Coxwell, and the Iron Age hill fort in the beautiful Badbury woods. The four milers were back in time for lunch, and the eight milers for tea, at the excellent cafe in Carpenter’s Yard at Coleshill.

The distinctive feature of this walking group will be to base every walk on a Trust property within easy reach of Oxford. Watch out for notices of future walks!

NEW MEMBERS’ GARDEN PARTY

What better way to welcome our newer members to Oxford Centre than a garden party with strawberries and cream at the end of June!

Members who had joined within the last couple of years, but had few opportunities to join any of our activities since all were cancelled during the pandemic, were invited to meet other new members and Committee members in a sunny garden in the north of Oxford.  Fresh strawberries and cream were much enjoyed, with the chance to make new friends and find out more about the Oxford Centre’s plans for the next few months (Covid permitting).

MAY OUTING

22 members were delighted to be able to take a coach ride to South West Oxfordshire to visit Coleshill Park National Trust estate on 27 May 2021. Abiding by COVID-compliant regulations, with socially distanced seating and masks on the coach and at Carpenter’s Yard coffee shop, everyone involved reported that they felt very safe, and thoroughly enjoyed the morning’s outing, which included a pre-ordered home baked cake with a hot drink.

During the visit, Chair Pauline Martin presented Trust General Manager Christian Walker with a cheque for the balance of funds collected by Oxford Centre for planting saplings at Middleleaze Paddock on the Coleshill estate, which will pay for a total of 334 young trees to be planted next winter.

We are delighted with recent recognition from Director General Hilary McGrady of the value the Trust places on their Supporter Groups:

“Centres & Associations remain an important and valued part of our National Trust community. I’ve filmed a message to say a personal thanks which you can watch here (Password: TRUST).”

To accompany Hilary’s vlog, and after a year-long negotiation to improve our partnership with them, the Trust’s Director of People Engagement, Tiger de Souza MBE, published this compelling Statement of Intent – more, very welcome news.

During the pandemic, we are replacing our programme of lectures in Oxford with a series of lectures given via Zoom, to be viewed each month by our members in their own home.

On Tuesday 16 March at 11am: our presentation via Zoom will be Cliveden: Passion, Pleasure and Politics outlining the history of Cliveden, from the Duke of Buckingham in the 17^th century to the Astors in the 20^th century. Ray Isted, a volunteer speaker from the Cliveden Talks Service, will lead us on a journey from devilish dukes to scandalous headlines, and from boundary-breaking garden design to political notoriety.

On Tuesday, 20 April at 11am: our Zoom lecture will be Ham House, the finest 17C house in Europe to be given by Roseanne Williams, a member of the National Trust Monitoring Group, a keen volunteer for many years, and a former member of Council. It is the story of how a father and daughter, William and Elizabeth Murray, developed Ham with wonderful interior treatments and furnishings. Roseanne includes some relevant Stuart history and finishes by describing the interesting story of how it came into the hands of the NT.  

From Monday 17th until Sunday 23^rd May the Zoom lecture will be Jewish Country Houses, Collections and National Memory, a joint presentation by Abigail Green, Professor of Modern European History, University of Oxford, and Tom Stammers, Associate Professor in Modern European History, University of Durham. Abigail is working with the National Trust on a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship at Oxford helping to reveal shared Jewish histories across NT properties. She writes: “The country houses of the Jewish elite that were once ubiquitous across Europe have largely faded from national memory. What do these houses and the extraordinary art collections that once embellished them tell us about the changing place of Jews and Jewishness in Britain in the 19^th and 20^th centuries?”   

From Monday 14^th to Sunday 20^th June, the presentation on Reroofing The Vyne by George Roberts, National Trust Curator of The Vyne, will be available via a Zoom link for members.  Following damage from a severe storm in 2013, The Vyne’s entire roof needed to be repaired. In September 2018, this former Tudor palace, visited by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, reopened after a 2-year £5.4m roof conservation project which used 41 miles of scaffolding and involved rebuilding several Tudor chimneys.

Oxford Centre is planning our first outing of the year to visit Coleshill Park on May 27^th 2021.

It will be a half-day visit to Coleshill Model Farm, via Middleleaze Paddock, the site where up to 500 native broadleaf saplings will be planted next winter, sponsored by members of the Oxford Centre. Numbers on the visit are restricted to 25, with the option of a repeat visit if there is sufficient interest.

All aspects of the outing have been designed to be totally COVID compliant, with spaced seating on the coach and in the Coffee Shop at Coleshill where pre-ordered hot drinks and cakes will be served. 

The team from Buscot & Coleshill Estate will introduce themselves and their roles including their plans for the creation of extensive new woodlands on the estate, in line with National Trust overarching policy for this year.

For more information, see Visit Calendar 2021.

This winter we are replacing our monthly lectures in Magdalen College Auditorium with lectures via Zoom which are made available to our Members to view in their own homes each month, usually for 7 days, from a link sent by email. For more information, see our Upcoming Events.

We welcome you to Join Us as a member.

Forthcoming lectures

Morris Dancing, Myth and History

Pagan fertility ritual or courtly dance?  This illustrated talk by Mike Heaney, Morris authority and musician, disentangles the myth from the real history spanning 600 years. 

To be made available to members online from 18th to 24th January 2021.

Making Sense of Portraits in Country Houses  

Amy Lim, researcher at the University of Oxford and Tate Britain, looks at 17th and 18th century portraits in National Trust houses and explores why these portraits were displayed, particularly the “Petworth Beauties” series. 

To be made available to members online from 15th to 21st February 2021.

Cliveden: Passion, Pleasure and Politics  

A complete history of Cliveden with a speaker from Cliveden Talks Service: from devilish dukes to scandalous headlines and boundary-breaking garden design to political notoriety.

To be made available to members online on March 16th 2021 ONLY.

The pandemic has disrupted everyone’s lives, for many months. Throughout it all, Oxford Centre has found new ways of staying in touch with our members in order that we all continue to “promote and prosper the National Trust in our region”. Never before has that been a greater priority:

• Members are kept in touch via monthly e-letters, and quarterly newsletters in print, by email and posted on site here
• We run monthly Zoom talks via emailed links that members can access at their convenience, sharing the link with others 
• Our Twitter account reaches a steadily growing digital audience
• We staged a fun, photographic competition as a fund raiser
• Members are supporting our local National Trust estate, Coleshill & Buscot, as described below.

The Coleshill and Buscot Estates

This beautiful, rural estate is 40 mins drive from Oxford. We have worked closely with the National Trust team there throughout the devastating impact of lockdown, cutbacks and emerging recovery, establishing a strong working partnership of mutual benefit:

• Members are participating in a subscription scheme towards creating a bio-diverse environment of 500 saplings and a pond for water fowl on Middleleaze Paddock as part of the National Trust’s Everyone needs nature scheme. Coleshill is designated an exemplar site (see November newsletter for how to subscribe)
• specialist staff helped us to launch Zoom talks to members October to December 2020 which successfully raised awareness of Coleshill’s intriguing WW2 history as well as the varied challenges of managing this diverse and unique estate
• with the support of Coleshill rangers, we plan to relaunch Oxford Centre Walking Group, from Coleshill Park in the Spring, as soon as Government guidelines permit 

Pauline Martin, Chair chair.ocnt@gmail.com

Keep Safe

Unfortunately, because of Covid-19 restrictions, we cannot hold any of our Autumn Lectures in Magdalen College Auditorium this year.

In their place we are recording some lectures via Zoom which will be made available to our Members to view in their own homes, from a link sent by email.

Here is the programme for October to December 2020. These talks are delivered by staff members of the West Oxfordshire estates of the National Trust, to whom we are very grateful for their contributions.

Conservation Grazing at White Horse Hill

Lecture available to OCNT Members for a week from Monday 19 October.

National Trust Ranger Andrew Foley will tell us more about a topic close to his heart, which he describes in this way:
“A talk on our successful arable reversion project at White Horse Hill, and further success with our new grazing regime including the type of cattle we have and why we choose these. I will also talk about the resulting benefits for wildlife, people and the history of the Hill.”

Coleshill House: its secrets, trials and tribulations

Lecture available to OCNT Members for a week from Monday 16 November.

A talk scheduled to take place in November in Magdalen College Auditorium, will now be delivered via Zoom by Liza Dibble, NT Community Learning Officer for the Buscot and Coleshill Estates.

Buscot and Coleshill Estates came together in 1956 on the death of Ernest Cook, bequeathed to the National Trust. Coleshill House, built in 1660 and occupied by Auxiliary Units during WW2, burned down during restoration in 1952.

Coleshill – Rediscovering an historic landscape

Lecture available to OCNT Members for a week from Monday 14 December.

A virtual walk with Christian Walker, General Manager for West Oxfordshire, around Coleshill Park, discovering this lost landscape that once had a unique house lost to fire in 1952, after which it fell to sleep. The overgrown Long Shrubbery walk and former flower gardens are not open to the public, but as the parkland returns to National Trust management this autumn, Christian will share some of the plans over the coming years to restore and enable greater access to this special place.   

OCNT Members watch out for the email containing details of how to watch these lectures on your computer / tablet / smart phone which will be sent to you a few days before they become available. This will be a simple process of clicking on a link which will take you to view the recording. You can choose when to watch, at a time convenient to you. No need to leave your house!