by Judy & Stuart Dewey

ISBN-10: 0-948598 11 5
(ISBN-13: 978-0-948598-11-1)

published 2001

252pp

420 illustrations

size: 21cm x 20cm

£12.50
 

This is a completely revised and very much expanded version of the original Change at Cholsey, published to celebrate the village's millennium in 1986 (hence the "Again" in the subtitle!).

From a tiny Saxon farming community to today's lively commuter village, this is a vivid picture of Cholsey in South Oxfordshire and the lives of its people. The latest historical research is spiced with characters and anecdotes, bringing the past to life in a very readable and lavishly illustrated book.

In addition to the main chapters, which tell the story of the village from the Stone Age to the beginning of the third millennium in a largely chronological order, there are special features on:

• the Bronze Age (including exciting and previously unpublished results of a recent archaeological excavation beside the River Thames)

• Lost Trees (including cedar trees originally imported from the Lebanon as seeds hidden in the parasol of a 19th century vicar's wife)

• the preserved Cholsey & Wallingford Railway (known locally as The Bunk because the locomotive twice left the coaches behind and 'did a bunk'!)

• Village Place Names (nearly every street is mentioned)

• the Church Bells and bellringers

• the Great Medieval Barn (an architectural detective story)

• famous Cholsey inhabitants (including Agatha Christie)

• a photo feature of Village Scenes

• we also trace one family - the Buttons - through three hundred years from the 16th to the 19th centuries and identify the properties they owned in 1550, 1695 and 1830. Amazingly, five of these are house sites still readily identifiable today.

Researched by the Cholsey History Group, the book was written and produced by Judy & Stuart Dewey, local historians and publishers who have lived in Cholsey for over thirty years.

Fully indexed.

Published on behalf of Cholsey 1000 Plus.