Get involved
Burford volunteers' photography training day
An important part of England's Past for Everyone is to engage local communities and others interested in Oxfordshire local history.
In Burford
Volunteer programmes with the Oxfordshire Buildings Record, the Burford Probate Group, and the Burford Photography Group during 2005-7 fed into our project on Burford: Buildings and People in a Cotswold Town. Explore the outcomes on this website, or in our Burford EPE paperback.
In Henley
Volunteer work began in 2007, following a well-attended public meeting to introduce the project.
The Henley Census Group is busy transcribing and analysing 19th-century censuses . One of our aims is to link census entries to particular buildings, which will feed into our building investigation. In addition, census information will tell us a great deal about the town's economy and social structure, about population movement, and about the everyday life of ordinary families. The Group's transcripts are being made available on this website, with associated information on buildings and people.
The Burford/Henley Probate Group is transcribing Henley wills and probate inventories from the 16th to 18th centuries. These too will be made available on the website, and are feeding into our publications. Probate documents contain fascinating information about people and families, wealth and trade, and ordinary houses, showing how they were furnished and how rooms were used.
Some of our building investigation is being carried out with help from the Oxfordshire Buildings Record, our volunteer partners in the Burford project.
We have also carried out some exciting archaeological work at Bix with volunteers from the South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group, in search of the lost medieval church of Bix Gibwyn.
These projects are well advanced, but there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved with future work. To find out more, contact the Oxfordshire County Editor.
Henley publicity meeting, Christ Church Centre, 17 April 2007
The Henley Census Group celebrates its first Christmas, December 2007
