Publication Reviews – Cake & Cockhorse, Autumn 1998

Publication Reviews – Cake & Cockhorse – Autumn 98

Review from “Cake & Cockhorse”, the Journal of the Banbury Historical Society. Vol. 4, No.4 Autumn/Winter 1998

Aspects of Helmdon no 2. Helmdon branch WEA, 1998 , A5, 56 pp.,£3.50 inc. postage (payable to WEA Helmdon branch) from Mrs. A.L Harwood, [address removed]

Two issues back we reviewed the first Aspects of Helmdon, and it is good that a second has now appeared. As with its predecessor it is admirable in content and presentation.

Audrey Harwood follows up her research into Helmdon bakers with a similar piece on the village’s four pubs and their various landlords. The Cross appears to have been the longest established, appropriately enough probably run by the Cross family in earlier centuries, though the evidence for this is of necessity circumstantial. The Chequers was the other alehouse or inn, with the William IV (later the Bell) and the Cock and Magpie as beerhouses. Only the Bell still survives to offer refreshment to Helmdon’s present inhabitants, but Audrey has unearthed a commendable amount about all four from a wide range of sources.

Valerie Moir contributes two pieces. The first is an account of work done transcribing the gravestones in the churchyard, which should encourage readers to undertake similar work elsewhere. Her major article on Helmdon Enclosure is a tour de force. It opens with a general description of the former open field system, and a map of Helmdon’s own pre-enclosure layout. The parish comprised three manors, with two Oxford colleges, Magdalen and Worcester, each being major landowners, together with the Shortland family. For the researcher this is fortunate, as shown by a 1731 rent roll preserved at Worcester College. But the real treasure is a series of letters written in 1758 by the Commissioner, Mr Francis Burton, to the Reverend Dr Jenner at Magdalen College. This illustrates vividly the process from start to finish, with much human detail. It is not surprising that Burton was Commissioner, as he was agent to William Cartwright of Aynho, the M.P. who was to present the petition to Parliament. He clearly worked conscientiously and hard on the scheme, but was not without his personal problems: ‘… my little boy … is all next week to go through a medical discipline for ye Worms, by which he is almost eaten up. I hardly ever saw so large a Breed of those noxious insects ….’ Two years later he was to propose a similar enclosure for Aynho. Nicholas Cooper, in his history of Aynho (pp.177-8), suggests he was a melancholy man lacking in drive and ready to see difficulties. His experiences at Helmdon do not seem to bear this out, but he would be well aware of all that was involved.

The booklet concludes with reminiscences of three ‘old inhabitants’, always worth recording. The pagination continues form the preceding issue, which will greatly help the eventual index.