Ramsden Domesday Project

The Ramsden Parish Domesday Project was started in 1997 when the Parish Council was thinking about how to celebrate the Millennium.  Its main decision was to extend the Memorial Hall but it also set-up a committee with a general brief to have a look at village history and to make some sort of record of the village at that time.

A lot of information was gathered over the next couple of years; for example the Parish Registers were indexed and family trees constructed.  Extracts of these may be obtained from the Committee.  Next it was decided that the first ‘event’ should be the holding of an exhibition to show what we had discovered.  Fund-raising took place and a substantial grant was obtained from ‘Awards for All’.  The exhibition, called ‘Ramsden - XX Centuries- 20 Lives’ took place in the Memorial Hall between 10th and 18th June 2000 and received considerable acclaim.  A brochure was produced, as was a book of walks - Both of which are still available.

Next, the committee turned its hand to producing a history of each individual house in the Parish and a note about who the owners or occupiers were in 2000.  It was compiled from old deeds and other records plus questionnaires which went to every home.  Photographs of houses and people were included.  This is called the ‘Doomsday Book’.  One copy was lodged with Oxford Record Office to be put away for a century and a second is kept in the village and is shown on occasions such as coffee mornings.  Copies of entries for individual houses (without photographs) may be ordered.

The committee is now working on a book which will tell the history of the village as a whole.  Fourteen chapters are planned to cover the development of the village over the centuries with emphasis on its interesting characters, religion, the village institutions, sport, wartime experiences, ecology and so on.  Much has been drafted but a lot remains to be done.  It is hoped that we will publish in 2008.

We have discovered far too much material for it to all be included in the book, so we are establishing an archive which should prove to be a substantial asset for the village in the future.  We welcome contributions from people who may have lived here or who have some other knowledge of Ramsden.

Please do get in touch, especially if you may be interested in purchasing the book when it’s published!

Click here to contact us - Thank you!

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