THE NEWSLETTER OF THE DEDDINGTON & DISTRICT

HISTORY SOCIETY ISSN 1479-5884, issue XX, September 2004

Programme for thestart of our 2004-2005 season

8 September: Alan Rosevear‘The turnpike roads of NorthOxfordshire’13 October: John Woolley, ‘A his-tory of policing’

A full programme is in prepara-tion

Our meetings take place at theWindmill Centre at 7.30 on thesecond Wednesday of the monthduring the winter season

From the ChairThe first issue of 224 for our newseason contains a startling revela-tion by Colin Cohen of how closethis area came to being strip-mined40 years ago. It is heartening to notethe effectiveness of widespread,determined, well-argued and well-led opposition in the face of power-ful vested interests. Local historyplays an important role in remind-ing us of such episodes: inSantayana’s much quoted remark,‘those who forget the past aredoomed to repeat it’.

I rather wish that members’memories were wiped clean at theend of each season, so that we couldjust repeat our programme eachyear! Finding new speakers can beproblematic, but I think that weshall provide another varied andinteresting programme this year.Many thanks to all our members foryour continued support. It is a rea-sonable assumption that if you arerenewing your membership youenjoy our meetings and activities, sowhy not persuade a friend or neigh-bour to come along and share yourenjoyment? We always need newpeople and new ideas to stir us up.

Chris Day

The Oxfordshire ironstone enquiry of 1960There is no point being editor if one cannot indulge oneself from time totime—and this is one such time. One of the more intriguing aspects ofresearching a history of the Barfords has been the number of ‘standalone’stories I came upon. The post-war plan to dig up a large chunk of NorthOxfordshire and ship it to South Wales to be smelted down is one such.

Ironstone (technically Marlstonerock) was first recognised as an ironore at Fawler (west of Stonesfield)in the 1850s by the British Geologi-cal Survey1 and was worked fromabout 1859. The Marlstone had beenused for building from ‘time imme-morial’ and its iron-rich nature musthave been pretty obvious to anyone.Economic working would havebeen a non-starter, even in the dayswhen transport was difficult, asvery much richer ores were avail-able in other parts of the country.

There had been no working onthe scale proposed in the fifties. Theissues were complicated and therewere two public enquiries, in partbecause the company promotingthe scheme does not seem to haveanticipated any serious opositionand prepared its case so badly thatthe first enquiry was stopped.

There might have been an atti-

tude that the scheme would inevi-tably go ahead as the applicant (theDowsett Mineral Recovery Co Ltd)had been bought by Richard, Tho-mas and Baldwin Ltd, who were a50% nationalised steel company.Thus the scheme was effectivelybeing promoted by one Secretary ofState and would be judged by an-other.

On page 2 there is a map thatshows the area for which applica-tions were being made. The origi-nal is hand-coloured, as it is on theWeb; the pink area was to be minedfirst (mainly from Bloxham to HookNorton) while the green area ([in-cluding Deddington and north-wards to Adderbury) was to bestripped later: literally stripped, asthis was to be open-cast mining toa depth of about 30 feet. After theore had been removed the top-soilwould have been replaced and the

land ‘re-instated’ in the way that isfamiliar north of Banbury with thefields lowered and hedges standingproud on sharp embankments. Theopen-cast mining was due to last for30 years or so and ironically wouldhave come to an end at about thesame time as the purpose-built millin South Wales closed down.

Needless to say the countrysidewould have been devastated by theoperation, and the noise, dirt anddisruption would have been terri-ble. One of the documents pro-duced for the objectors shows thatin the Hook Norton and IrondownHill areas no less than 1,750 acresof the application area of 2,550 acreswould have been strip mined (708of 1032 hectares). Initially the appli-cations had been for only 185 acreseast of Adderbury and 973 east ofBloxham—the thin end of a wedge.

It was very much due to the ef-forts of Major John Schuster2 ofNether Worton House and MajorEustace Robb of Tew Park that afight was put up by no less than 20local parishes, five boroughs, dis-tricts and the County. They were co-ordinated by the North OxfordshireArea Protection Committee andjoined at the Inquiry by other bod-ies including 44 WI branches, theBanbury Historical Society andmany others. Perhaps the smartest

Part of a map showing the areas of upto seven applications from 1957 to1960. Deddington would have been alater phase. Ordnance Surveymapping © Crown copyright.AM130/04

thing the Protection Committee andCounty Council did was to commis-sion the well-respected EconomistIntelligence Unit (EIU) to report intothe scheme which it did twice in19603. The Protection Committeenot only raised funds to cover itsown costs, but contributed over£1,000 to the County Council’scosts.

The ultimate success of the objec-tors must be largely due to the factthat the EIU so clearly demolishedthe economics of the plan. However,even they were not confident thatone minister would turn down an-other’s project.

One of the more specious claimsmade by the applicants was that thearea had no significant landscapevalue and thus was not worth pre-serving. The campaigners commis-sioned photographs to disprovethis, eight of which are reproducedhere with the whole set to be avail-able on Deddington OnLine4.

As can be seen on these pages thelandscape photos presented to theenquiry and taken by W R Bawdenof Eagle Photos of Cheltenham5 givethe lie to any idea that it lackedvalue. More were commissionedfrom Blinkhorns of Banbury6 toshow the effect of large-scale min-eral workings in the area. Inevita-bly the former are the more attrac-tive, especially as it would not havebeen appropriate for them to havedramatised existing ironworkings:they simply show the devastationin its drabness and simplicity.

I have been able to identify thelocation of most of the images, butthere are still some that readers maybe able to help with. All are shownon DoL. Captions are overleaf, asare my contact details if you can addany information on the photos.

To quote Major Schuster, ‘Rarelycan a countryside have been moreunited or worked more closely to-gether under the leadership of itsCounty Council. This unity of pur-pose was, of course, founded on adeep appreciation of the country-side threatened, but it owed verymuch to the theme behind the localcase, which was not a thoughtless“extract iron-ore from anycontryside but ours” but rather“take this iron-ore from this coun-tryside, much though we love it, ifit really is in the national interest,but first you must show this, con-vincingly, to be so”.’2

Colin Cohen

If undelivered please return to: Deddington & District History Society, c⁄o 37Gaveston Gardens, Deddington OX15 0NX. 224 is the newsletter of theDeddington & District History Society, published three times a year and distrib-uted free to members.

The Society meets on the second Wednesday of the month during the season,normally at the Windmill Centre in Deddington. Membership £9/16 pa single/couples, or £2.50 per meeting at the door.

Editorial address: 1 South Newington Road, Barford St Michael, OX15 0RJ. e-mail: editor224@nehoc.co.uk

Notes1 Memoirs of The Geological Survey ofGreat Britain, The Mesozoic ironstones ofEngland, The Liassic ironstones, T HWhitehead et al. London, 1952. I am in-

Captions to all photos, from front toback, top to bottom. The text is largelytaken from the back of the photos

1 Swerford. [near the Griffin pub].An every-day scene in this unspoiledvillage. Farmer Cox taking his cowshome for milking.

2 Swerford. The view southwardsfrom the by-road Hook Norton toSwerford. The Chipping Norton toBanbury main road runs along theskyline and gives fine views over thevalley. The upland fields behind thevillage are included in the presentironstone application, as well as aconsiderable acreage over the hill onthe far side of the main road.

3 Unknown location. Probablynorth of Banbury—exhaustedironstone workings returned toagricutural use.

4 Bloxham. The view south east fromWyckham Park [now Tudor HallSchool].

5 Milcombe. A charming sceneimmediately adjacent to the railwayline and land concerned in theapplication. [Most of the line fromChipping Norton to Banbury wassingle track, with passing places atthe stations].

6 Milcombe. Looking east along therailway line in the vicinity of thevillage, which lies just beyond thetrees. The land right of the railway isincluded in the application. [Wherethe sidings will be?]

7 Milcombe. A peaceful countrylane, the road from Milcombe toWigginton. The railway line is up thebank to the right and the ore will needto reach it across this lane.

8 Unknown location. Flooded riverand bridge. It has the same number ofarches as the bridge at Rousham, butcould it be south of Adderbury ornorth of Deddington?

telligence Unit. London, 1960.4 Any further information about thephotos would be most welcome at theaddress below. To see all 20 photos onthe web go to www.deddington.org.uk/history/ironstone.5 I have used ‘best endeavour’ to tracethem, but have been unable to do so.6 I am grateful to Blinkhorns for per-mission to reproduce their photos.

debted to Mike Sumbler of The BritishGeological Survey for his advice.2 I am most grateful to the Hon MrsLorna Schuster for making her late hus-band’s enquiry papers available to me.3 A survey of sources of supply of iron oreto the United Kingdom and A study of thefactors bearing on the decision whether ornot to undertake large scale iron ore min-ing in North Oxfordshire, Economist In-