Updated history of Hayfield Road
Catherine Robinson
Dear Neighbours,
In 1993 I published a history of our street, written in collaboration with the late Elspeth Buxton. Hayfield Road: Nine Hundred Years of an Oxford Neighbourhood sold well but has long been out of print. Now there is a proposal to produce an updated edition for publication next year, i.e. 30 years after the first edition.
The idea
was first mooted at one of Graeme's Wednesday get-togethers at
The Anchor.
Since then I have
been discussing it with Clare (at number 72), and it has become
clear that this venture could be (and needs to be) a
collaborative community project. We want to celebrate the diversity of our street
and explore "how we got here from there", i.e. the changes that
have gradually taken place over the past 135 years since the
construction of Hayfield Road as we know it today.
So far we’ve discussed conducting anonymised interviews with current residents, led by a team of volunteers recruited from the street. The interviews would be based on some of the major themes featured in the first book (including, for example, occupations, origins, family sizes, women's lives, children's lives, and the wider life of the community).
As the first edition included census data from 1891 (the first census after the construction of the street), we hope that the second edition could include data from the census of 1921 and the national Register taken in 1939. Readers would then be able to compare details of their own lives today with those who lived at their particular address soon after the end of the First World War, and on the eve of the Second World War. (Subsequent census data are unavailable.)
This project would be too big for two people to manage, so to make it happen we need offers of help from Hayfield Road neighbours, especially those with backgrounds in historical research (social and economic history), book design, and publishing, including e-publishing. And also (equally important) from residents willing to undertake informal interviews with neighbours in their respective blocks of houses. Please contact me at cmrobins...@gmail.com – with no obligation at this stage – if you are interested in helping.
Yours hopefully,
Catherine Robinson
(12 Hayfield Road)
PS: Why Nine Hundred Years? Because our street began life as a rural lane called "The Upper Way to Wolvercote", linking Oxford city with the village to the north that has existed for at least 900 years.
Catherine Robinson
Hello neighbours. Graeme is not around to host the usual general get-together at The Anchor this evening. Instead Ian Haslam and I would welcome anyone interested in the Hayfield Road history project to join us at the pub at 6 pm for a chat and an update. Details of the project were circulated a few days ago (see below).
If you might be interested
in getting involved, maybe as a researcher or interviewer, or as
an adviser on design, or in any other capacity, feel free to
join us at The Anchor tonight - without any obligation at this
stage. If you're not free this evening but are interested in
helping, please contact me by email or telephone.
Catherine (no. 12)
tel. 01865 511307
Catherine Robinson
The Hayfield Road history project is going well. New facts are coming to light all the time, illustrating changes in occupations, household size, women's lives, etc. over the past 130 years. I'm collecting memories of notable characters, and have drafted chapters about Aladdin, the Deli, the canal and Trap Grounds, and the coal wharf. The book is on target for publication in the first half of 2023.
Catherine Robinson
#12, tel. 01865 511307
PS: All the personal information gathered in the process will be anonymised, so no individuals will be identified in the published book. As a token of thanks for agreeing to complete a questionnaire, I will send you a copy of the 1891 census, so that you can learn about the first occupants of your house. And if you agree to be interviewed as well, you will receive a copy of the 1939 Register for Hayfield Road, taken at the outbreak of the second world war.
Dima Pasechnik
Dima @22
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