Port Meadow – the 'boast of Oxford' for a million years

Port Meadow is historically and ecologically unique. It’s been common land for over 1000 years and is Oxford’s oldest historic monument. It’s dotted with Neolithic and Bronze Age remains which point to Oxford’s role as a major sacred site in prehistoric times. Whilst the Meadow and the Upper River have been central to Oxford life for hundreds of years, my history (to be published by Morris Oxford in 2025), which starts 500,000 years ago, focuses on the social history of the Meadow from the 17th century onwards. It was the site of enormous crowds for civic and sporting events in the Victorian and Edwardian period. It was a World War I airfield, a transit camp for escapees from Dunkirk in World War II. It was threatened with housing and relief roads in the 1960s but has survived – almost intact. It’s a fabulous story…

Dr. Graham Harding

Cambridge historian – 1960s. Professional career(s) in publishing and then marketing. Retired and went back to university to do an MPhil (Cambridge) and DPhil (Oxford). Thesis published by Bloomsbury as Champagne in Britain 1800-1914: how the British transformed a French luxury. Won 2022 Prix de l’OIV. Written extensively on wine history – C18-21.

Physical attractiveness and the Female Life-cycle in the 17th Century England 

This talk focuses on how women of the aristocracy, gentry and middling-sorts in seventeenth-century England conceptualised their own physical attractiveness and that of other women. Diaries, letters, autobiographies, and portraits will be used to show how women sought to present themselves.  The importance of good looks increased during adolescence and once women reached an age when they were expected to marry.  How women sought to maintain an age-appropriate but attractive appearance as they passed through middle and into old age will be discussed too.  

Dr. Tim Reinke-Williams

Dr Tim Reinke-Williams is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Northampton and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Tim researches gender, work and the body in Britain, in the period c.1500-1750, and is the author of Women, Work and Sociability in Early Modern London (Palgrave, 2014).

Love and Marriage in medieval Oxfordshire

The lecture will explore the law on marriage and the experiences of some women in the county.

Dr. Rowena E. Archer

Rowena lives at Hanwell and has been a lecturer in medieval history at Oxford since 1981. Her research focusses on the late medieval aristocracy and in particular on women.

The Ancient English Morris Dance

Where does morris dancing come from? Why will you find men and women dancing with bells on their legs outside country pubs all through the summer, waving handkerchiefs or clashing sticks? Do you believe them if they tell you it’s a pagan fertility ritual? This talk disentangles the myth from the real history, uncovers the different kinds of morris dancing, and reveals where its origins lie and where it is going.

Mike Heaney’s book The Ancient English Morris Dance will be available to buy at the discount price of £24.

Mike Heaney

Mike Heaney spent his career at the Bodleian Library, simultaneously pursuing his interests in custom and local history. He’s an acknowledged authority on morris dancing, the author of The Ancient English Morris Dance (2023) and editor of (and contributor to) the books Percy Manning: The Man who Collected Oxfordshire (2017) and The Histories of Morris (2018)

Sequestration in Oxon during the Civil Wars

During the British Civil Wars both King Charles I and his Parliament imposed a policy of sequestration upon the other’s supporters – the confiscation of real and personal estates in an effort to secure financial and material superiority. This paper will explore the complicated history of sequestration in Oxfordshire, the stories of the people who were fighting to save their homes, and what this can tell us about an aspect of the civilian experience during this turbulent period

Dr. Charlotte Young 

Charlotte is an early modern historian. She works as a Tutor with the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University, and as a Professor of History for Wake Forest University’s study abroad programme in London. She is also the vice-chair of the Cromwell Association.

Organization and Planning in the Mercian kingdon: a context for Anglo-Saxon Banbury

Although Banbury is undocumented before the 1060s, there is now important archaeological evidence for a ditched enclosure east of the church, perhaps radially planned, dating from the period of the Mercian supremacy. This lecture will relate this feature to comparable sites, and suggest a context in the organisation of the eight-h to ninth-century Mercian kingdom.

Professor John Blair

Emeritus Fellow, The Queen’s College, Oxford. Medieval historian and archaeologist with research interests in buildings, settlement and landscape.

 Over the Hills to Glory: the Ascott Martyrs.

For a short time in the early 1870s, the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood achieved national fame, perhaps even notoriety, when 16 women (two with their babies) were jailed for supporting men on strike in support of a claim for an improvement in their meagre wages. The women’s story is interesting both for the light it sheds on the early history of agricultural trade unionism in Oxfordshire, and on the everyday lives of a group of women whose actions presented such a startling contrast to the popular idea of passive, submissive, apolitical, Victorian womanhood.

Carol Anderson.  

Previously Director of the Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock, and Manager of the County Museum Service, Carol’s interest in the archaeology and history of Oxfordshire is wide ranging. She is a Trustee of the Oxfordshire Buildings Trust; Chair of the Ascott Martyrs Educational Trust; and Study Day Organiser for the Oxfordshire Local History Association.

Olive Gibbs: A Remarkable Woman

(48 minutes, Certificate 12A)

The film’s directors, Helen Sheppard and Christopher Baines, will introduce the film.   Not long ago, Olive Gibbs would have been familiar to everyone in Oxford. Born and bred in a working class area of the city, she twice became Lord Mayor of Oxford and was the first woman chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. This documentary tells the story of a brave and exceptional character, remembered for her outspoken passion, lively sense of humour, and spirited dedication to improving the lives of ordinary people.