At our February meeting Jane Bowen, the curator of the Abingdon Museum, presented an illustrated talk on the restoration of the County Hall. The official reopening, by the Duke of Gloucester, was in March 2013 after extensive repair and refurbishment. Overall the project cost about £3million, with half coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Jane gave examples of the other fund raising activities which in total raised £1.7 million.

The County Hall, a Grade1 listed building and described by Pevsner as one of the finest Town Halls in England, was in a parlous state: crumbling and loose stonework, leaking roof, unsafe electrics and very poor heating and thermal insulation. The building is owned by the District Council but under the guardianship of English Heritage. The latter supplied no funding but did apply certain restrictions on the update, including no lift to be installed to the top of the building. The £3 million has been spent on conservation, restoration and building improvements. Double glazing has been installed, no mean feat for windows 3m high. New electrics, lighting, security and heating have all been installed and the roof and flagpole made safe. During the restoration work original 17^th century paintwork was revealed on the fine door at the top of the internal stairs. The basement has been transformed with a new café and educational room and the restoration of the Crossley engines originally installed in 1907 to pump the town’s water supply to a tank in the roof of the building to generate increased delivery pressure.

The first floor gallery has been impressively redesigned to give a flexible exhibition space with clear and simple explanatory panels. A particular exhibition concerns the MG factory and Jane described the delicate engineering project necessary to introduce a car through the narrow opening windows facing the Market Square. Another major exhibit tells the Story of the continuous inhabitation of Abingdon since the Iron Age. There are now also new showcases in the refurbished attic where an exhibition on WW1 will open in August.

On November 14th, Jeri Bapasola gave us a most informative and entertaining talk on “Building Blenheim – the house and gardens”.

She began with an account of the early lives of both Sarah Jenyns and John Churchill (who later became the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough). Neither came from wealthy families, and financial hardship in her youth marked Sarah’s attitude to money for the rest of her life.

After their great success at court under Queen Anne, and John Churchill’s famous victory at Blenheim they were granted an estate at Woodstock to build a suitably grand house. The contract for financing the build signed by the Lord Treasurer Sidney Godolphin was vague and lacked detail, given the chosen architect, Vanburgh, a free hand, and much money was wasted during the early phase of the build as a result of many changes in the design.

The victory over the French was celebrated everywhere in the building and particularly in the ceiling painting in the grand salon, the cost of which took up a large part of the decoration budget.

Vanburgh’s profligacy resulted in conflict with the Duchess, and he was replaced by Nicholas Hawksmoor. Grinling Gibbons was responsible for the elaborate stone carvings which were intended to rival those of Versaille. He was paid £75 for each piece.

The Palace was unfinished at the time of the Duke’s death and it became more of a monument to the success of war rather than the home envisaged by the Churchills. The work of the park was begun by Henry Wise, who laid out the formal gardens. During the time of the 4th Duke, Capability Brown was engaged to design the park and lake for which he was paid £20,500.

The 9th Duke employed Achille Duchene, who designed and planted the new water garden which formed a link between the house and lake – another feature that looked back to Versaille.

Belnheim is now a World Heritage site on the strength of the Palace and Capability Brown’s park.

At our October meeting Keith Crawford gave a fascinating presentation on the “History of the Witney Blanket Hall”, enhanced by excellent pictures and humorous anecdotes. Keith is a descendant of the Early family, so much associated with blanket manufacture in Witney and has been responsible for the building for the last two years.

The weaving of broadcloth used in blanket manufacture started in Witney in the middle ages. By the late seventeenth century there were sixty master weavers and their journeymen with one hundred and fifty looms in the town and the industry provided employment for some three thousand people. Spinning was done by cottage outworkers as was subsequent washing and fulling of the woven cloth, which was returned to the master weavers for final blanket manufacture. Unfortunately quality control was poor with widespread bribery of those set to maintain standards. Leading weavers petitioned the crown and in 1711 Queen Anne granted a charter to the Company of Blanket Weavers. The company elected a Master and two Wardens annually, set standards, inspected finished blankets and regulated the employment of apprentices.

In 1720 the Company built a headquarters, The Blanket Hall, in the High Street on a plot running down to the river, with several out buildings and two cottages. The hall had facilities for weighing blankets and on the first floor a Grand Room for meetings and entertainments. A feature of the building to this day is the single hand clock, originally built as a bell clock in 1722 for the sum of about £21. The early years of the Company were relatively successful and many fine dinners were held in the Grand Room, lasting many hours. In 1784 it was the first building in the town to install gas lighting. Decline set in the early nineteenth century as the industrial revolution introduced mechanisation to the blanket industry and in 1837 the Company claimed it could no longer contribute to poor relief as the few remaining members were financing the Hall out of their own pockets.

The Grand Room was hired out for events and in 1847 a Brewery was set up in the rest of the premises by Joseph Early and William Smith and this changed hands several times. In 1884 the building was again the first with a new lighting source, this time electricity. In 1900 a soft drinks company set up in the Hall and various other small enterprises came and went until by the 1970`s the Hall was in a sorry state. Our speaker`s uncle Brian Crawford, bought it in 1976 and  restored it and the outbuildings as private accommodation, with the Grand Room re-established in Queen Anne style. Following his death in 2011 the Hall has passed to a local Charity and leased to the “ Blanket Hall Community Interest Company” and they hope to open it to the public some time next year.