ENGLAND: THE OTHER WITHIN

Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Eynsham ethnographic collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Alison Petch,
Researcher 'The Other Within' project

Eynsham morris on May morning, 2007. Photograph by Suzy Prior [copyright]

Eynsham morris on May morning, 2007. Photograph by Suzy Prior [copyright]

Morris at Eynsham May, 2007 Copyright Suzy Prior, photographer

Morris at Eynsham May, 2007 Copyright Suzy Prior, photographer

Maypole at Eynsham May, 2007 Copyright Suzy Prior, photographer

Maypole at Eynsham May, 2007 Copyright Suzy Prior, photographer


The Pitt Rivers Museum does not have very many artefacts from Eynsham, but they are an interesting selection of types of things that it is perhaps worth reflecting upon and are typical of the range of things donated from the smaller settlements in Oxfordshire.

The same exercise could be carried out for all the settlements from which we have objects (and would be, if there were sufficient time). This gives a flavour of the types of additional information that is available, from the museum's databases and from more detailed research and knowledge.

Eynsham - the place

Eynsham is a large village between Witney and Oxford on the banks of the River Thames in West Oxfordshire. It grew up around the important ford at Swinford, which is now the site of the Swinford Toll Bridge, a notorious traffic bottleneck! It was a coaching stop on the London to Fishguard (a port for Ireland) trunk road, and is now just off the A40, which is an important road linking Oxford to Cheltenham and Wales. There was a large abbey in the village from 1005 AD, dissolved in 1538.

The population of Eynsham was 2,177 in 1871, dropping in 1901 to 1,757. By 1971 it had more than doubled in size at 4,428 people.

A map of the parish of Eysham's historical boundaries
A map of the village centre

The centre of Eynsham today is a very attractive mix of stone houses, with a lovely social atmosphere. It has a population of just under 5,000 people. It has a morris team, which is shown on some of the photographs of this webpage.

 

My thanks to Suzy Prior for allowing me to use her photographs of Eynsham on this page.

Further reading
http://www.eynsham.org/eynhistgen.html (which includes its own further reading list of books)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eynsham
http://www.wospweb.com/site/Eynsham-Online/
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=10525&strquery=eynsham
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=9660&st=eynsham
http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadDomainList.do?a=3&c=eynsham&d=14&i=1001x1002&m=0&r=1&s=1210583567984&enc=1&areaId=551674&OAAreaId=481639