Ollie's Shop & P.O.
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Visit the newly launched "Cotswold Room" at Ollie's Shop for a fantastic range of lovingly made local products and unique gifts from the Cotswolds such as scrumptious smoked fish from reknown Severn and Wye smokery, award winning jams and sauces, curious meats and Cotswold chorizos, Stroud handmade candles and Cotswold lavender lotions and much, much more!"
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Oakridge Village Shop and Post Office carries an extensive range of products from household essentials to award-winning organic foods and the very best local delicacies from all over the Cotswolds. Off road parking and a weekly order service and delivery are also available. Open 7 days a week.
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For more details click here
Email : olliesoakridge@gmail.com Tel : 01285 760239 Facebook : Ollie'sShop@OakridgeLynch Instagram: @ollies.oakridge |
Opening Hours:
Monday - Friday: 9am - 5pm Saturday: 9am - 1pm Sunday: 9am - 12 Noon |
Oakridge Community Website
The Oakridge Community consists of five villages with a combined population of about five hundred and is situated on the edge of the Cotswolds, overlooking the magnificent Golden Valley; six miles from Stroud and seven miles from Cirencester.
The five villages form the ecclesiastical parish of Oakridge, within the Civic Parish of Bisley-with-Lipyatt. The Oakridge Parish Church, part of the Bisley Benefice, is dedicated to St Bartholomew and was built in 1837 with funds raised by Thomas Keble, the then vicar of Bisley.
Oakridge is a thriving and very active community with many groups and societies and extensive amenities, including a Village Shop & Post Office, Primary School, Pub, Recreation / Cricket Ground, Tennis Court, Allotments, Childrens Playground and Village Hall.
A Village Show is held annually on the first Saturday in September. The School holds an annual May Revels on the village green.
Do You Offer Services to Oakridge Residents?
Do you live locally and offer services to Oakridge Residents - such as Plumbing, Decorating, Gardening, Odd Jobs, Dog Walking, Photography, Electrician, Walling, Bookkeeping etc. etc.
If you do we have added a new page 'Local Services' where you can advertise for free! Just contact me via the Contact Page with details of what you offer and how to contact you.
Latest!
For more detailed information on many of these items and much more, download the current edition of What's On
Platinum Jubilee Afternoon Tea and BIG SCREEN Concert LIVE from Buckingham Palace!
Update - concert timings have now been released - start is now scheduled for 1930
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Oakridge Players - Thank you.....
... to everyone who came along to our much delayed recent production of Fawlty Towers. The cast and crew had a great time and it sounded like the audience did too! Look out for news of the next production...
Oakridge Cricket Coaching
Cricket coaching for girls and boys aged 5-8 (All Stars) and 8-11 (Dynamos) is starting soon at Oakridge Cricket Club.... details below!
Lunch Club - BACK
Lunch Club has resumed after a break due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It will be held on the 3rd Wednesday of the month at a price of £8 per head. Arrive from 12 noon, to sit for 12.30. A wonderful chance to catch up with friends, or meet new.
More details from Gill Wimperis 01285 760528. Ollie's Shop
Oscar and I are super excited to bring you a sneak peek at our “Delicias de España” section. A selection of the very best products directly sourced from Spain: from staples from my mother’s kitchen when I was growing up (including the best rice from Valencia - essential to make a good paella) to award winning delicacies currently being served only at Michelin star restaurants around the world: award winning Manchego cheese, crisp and bright Albariño wine, hand carved ibérico ham, premium olive oil, delicious olives from the best regions of Spain and even octopus (for the very best Pulpo a la Gallega you can have without leaving your home), …. just to name a few. We will be bringing more every week as well as adding new goodies so stop by to see what’s in store and give your taste buds a well deserved trip to Spain, right here in Oakridge. Buen provecho!
Laura Rojo Do you have some time spare to help the Church in Oakridge stay open?
The village Church has a special role in an English Village community and Oakridge is no exception.
The Church in Oakridge, St Bartholomew’s, has a special place in the life of the village. It is used by Oakridge School on a regular basis and at special times of the year, such as Easter, Harvest and Christmas. It is a place of quiet and contemplation for many people in the village and a welcome resting place for walkers and visitors. The Church in Oakridge also features at important stages in all our life journeys such as when new life arrives in our families, when relationships are blessed and when we have to say goodbye to loved ones. Our Church in Oakridge, however, can’t continue to maintain its special place in our village without your help! We are looking for volunteers to clean and help maintain the Church through the year, to help with arranging flowers to welcome visitors and to take responsibility for coordinating the maintenance and security of the building. You may only be able to commit to an hour or two per week for a month in the year. This would help enormously with the cleaning or arranging flowers. If you feel able to commit to more responsibility to ensure the continued service the Church in Oakridge provides to the village community this would be wonderful. If you would like to explore any way you can be involved, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the following... John Mason - 01285 760465 Linda Reardon - 07794 425 915 Peter Scott -01452 770382 Oakridge Village Hall - Please Sign Up to Amazon Smile!
The Village Hall continues to be regularly used by the Ballyhoo Dance School, and by many fitness groups and the Choir, among others.
Don’t forget that the Bookings Calendar is available online - www.oakridgevillage.org/village-hall.html A year or so of supporters using Amazon Smile has shown it can generate useful funding for the Hall - please think about signing up to give a 0.5% donation to OVHT at no extra cost. It is very simple - when using Amazon just switch to smile.amazon.co.uk and search for Oakridge Village Hall Trust as your desired charity. You only have to do that once but can switch to another charity when you wish. Gigaclear Broadband Access – open to all users of the Hall – help us to keep the service available by signing up. Network: Oakridge Village Hall Gigaclear Password: OVHT2021 For more, see the village hall page. Booking enquiries: email johnloosley40@gmail.com Oakridge Parochial School
It has been a super busy term at Oakridge and we still
have two weeks to go! Recently, the children were invited to take part in a tree planting event in Chalford, a project which was conceived by one of our parents Gill Skeffington two years ago to raise awareness of our village school and do some wildlife habitat creation at the same time. Gill has persevered through the pandemic to keep the project going, and with parents’ help, has worked hard to facilitate the practicalities. We are also grateful to Annie Kleiner of Coppice Hill who responded to our appeal for suitable land to undertake the project, a pocket of scrub linking two areas of woodland close to the Dimmel’s Dale Wildlife Reserve. It was a truly rewarding experience for our children to be involved. Over 100 British native broadleaved trees have been planted this year, by four school groups - Oakridge planted 32 trees. The children are welcome to visit the site and the trees with their families or the school, watch them grow and enjoy the wild space. We are grateful to all who have been involved in this exciting project. Last week (w/c 14th March) we celebrated STEM with a particular focus on science and DT (design technology). Class 1 children learnt about light and Class 2 forces - linked to our topic. In Class 2 our book ‘The man who walked between the towers ’is an inspiring book about the true experience of Philippe Petit who walked between the two towers of the World Trade Centre in New York in 1974. It provided ample opportunities to explore. In science the children carried out an investigation to find out whose parachute could land the safest and slowest for Philippe the main character in the book. They were also challenged to build the tallest tower using a certain amount of marshmallows and 12 sticks of spaghetti! In DT both classes focused on mechanisms and mechanical systems; class 1 using levers to create owls for a shadow puppet show and really complex linkages to create a moving picture for the children’s author Charlotte Guillan’s book ’‘The skies above my eyes. ’’The results were incredible! On the other hand, Class 2 designed and made cranes for Philippe to lift him to the top of One World Trade Centre tower. Pulleys were used as the mechanism and some children even used motors! Finally, our week ended with a visit to We the Curious science museum in Bristol. We had a wonderful day. The weather was gorgeous and, as well as experiencing all that is on offer at the museum (engaging hands-on activities, a light show and a planetarium show), it was the first proper trip we have experienced in the last couple of years. I wonder where we will go next?! Fancy some TaiChi?
The Butchers Arms
Please see our facebook page and new website for the latest opening hours, or call for the latest menu.
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Oakridge Village Hall - into the digital world...
The Trustees of Oakridge Village Hall are pleased to announce completion of a state of the art digital audio/visual installation. This includes:
- 6000 lumens WUXGA laser digital projector - 3.5m wide motorised screen - New up-to-date sound system - Blu-ray player - Chromecast and Apple TV - 900 Mbps high speed broadband - Wireless operation The installation is designed to support many cultural activities such as showing/streaming films, presentations, dances, concerts and theatre. The Trustees plan to launch the facility soon with a village open day when its capability will be demonstrated. Oakridge Village Show Needs YOU!
SAVE THE DATE…. the Show will be held this year on Saturday September 3rd, complete with the annual produce show, the ever popular display of classic cars, and much much more.
HOWEVER, the Show can only go ahead with the help and commitment of villagers willing to assist with setting up and taking down the tents, running stalls etc. We would love your feedback so please let us know your ideas, and come along to a meeting on Monday 11th April at 7pm in the Village Hall to kickstart the planning process to make this another fantastic village event. With many thanks, Mark Barnett Email: mbarnett104@gmail.com History Group
Our first meeting of 2022 was a well-attended Do-It Ourselves session on Oakridge houses and families with John and Kay sharing lots of photos and research on the changes that have taken place particularly along the Broadway and along the top road leading to Bisley (Holloway Road).
The Lloyd George Survey of 1910 and the many photographs collected on the website from the first part of the 20th century provided lots of information on the physical state of the buildings to compare and contrast with the village as we see it now. For example, in 1910 on the Broadway there were 7 properties + 1 ruin + the Mill and Mill house, now there are 15 properties + the Mill house. On the road to Bisley there were 3 properties + 1 uninhabitable on the right going out of the village, now there are 8 on the right plus 10 more on the left. Quite a change both in amenities and also in the number of people in each household! Members of the audience participated adding their recollections and comments on all the changes. At the March meeting Kirsty Hartsiotis gave a fascinating talk on the various arts and crafts World War One memorials in Gloucestershire including our own Oakridge War Memorial. Dates for your diaries are: 27th April: visit to Gloucestershire Hub including Gloucestershire Archives and Gloucestershire Family History Centre at 2.00pm. If you haven’t yet booked a place, please contact John Loosley 01285 760460 or Kay Rhodes 01285 760264 25th May: Pop-up Museum Further details of these events will be available. Kay Rhodes May Revels are BACK!
After a two-year break, Oakridge School is delighted to announce that the May Revels will be back on Saturday 14th May from noon until 4.00pm!
The Revels are a fantastic day out for all ages, with people coming from far and wide to browse the stalls and exhibits, enjoy the entertainment and soak up the atmosphere. There will be plenty of delicious food and drink, games galore and the children will be demonstrating a range of dances from around the British Isles. All funds raised go to the school, so please save the date in your diary and come along, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible! Check out our new Village Gallery!
With thanks to Beth Hughes for this fabulous collection of local photographs, head over to the gallery....
Sapperton Railway Tunnel
It is interesting to speculate on the effect the construction of the railway tunnel had on the local community. In 1837 Charles Richardson, Brunel’s engineer, began surveying the line of the proposed tunnel by sinking trial shafts and erecting large staffs to assist the surveying on the surface. It was on the 27 April that the people became fully aware of the surveying activity as a large staff was raised. This is described in Richardson’s journal.
“Got hauling pegs &c driven – got large sheer legs up and had some difficulty to get the hauling parts in the right place. The Staff had a violent shake when first lifted off the props. Raised it easily, steadily and without the slightest accident – large crowd of spectators many of whom lent a hand. Tried several ways of getting up the Staff but was forced to climb up by the main hauling rope. Tightened cross tree gyes and plumbed the head of the Staff thereby. Cast hauling tackle adrift and was lowered down. Tightened the gyes but was forced to put a sheepshank, about a yard long, in each.” The construction of the tunnel commenced in 1838 and was completed in 1845. A series of shafts were excavated, and miners were lowered down these shafts to dig out the tunnel and the spoil was hauled up these shafts. These railway miners came from all over the country and the 1841 census records many lodging at Sapperton, Frampton Mansell, Daneway, Far Oakridge and Oakridge Lynch. There was a total of 48 recorded and some miners had families with them, and they rented cottages. This activity must have brought in welcome business to the area where there was high unemployment due to the collapse of the woollen cloth industry in Chalford. Although, no doubt, many locals obtained casual labouring jobs, few were employed as miners but Amnon Bishop of The Frith the son of a local weaver is described in the census as a miner and brothers James and Henry Hayden of Oakridge became tunnel miners later working in many parts of England and Scotland. Following the opening of the railway many Oakridge men went to work on the railway both on track maintenance and on the trains. This of course was not the first time that “foreign” miners had come to the area as in 1784 work commenced on the Sapperton canal tunnel which was completed in 1789. Most of these miners were accommodated at Daneway and, according to Norman Jewson, in barracks on the road from Sapperton to Frampton Mansell. Head on over to the Oakridge History Website for more... Start here for more on transport services... John Loosley Dame Margaret Weston
Dame Margaret Weston, born in Oakridge in 1926, the daughter of Mr Weston, headteacher at Oakridge School in the 1940s (and remembered in several of the recent ‘Memories’ articles), has recently passed away at the age of 94. Following education at Stroud High School and Birmingham Municipal Technical School, she was one of only 3 women alongside 300 men, selected for a student apprenticeship at The General Electric Company, where she became a Chartered Electrical Engineer. Following qualification, she joined the Science Museum in London in 1955, rising to become the first female director of a national museum in 1973. Her aim there was to make the Science Museum more fun, more accessible to children, and more various in its contents, including making its galleries more interactive. She was also instrumental in creating a network of museums extending outside London, the nationwide Science Museum Group.
Appointed a Dame in 1979, she retired in 1986 and spent her last years back in Stroud, where she helped set up the Museum in the Park, and was a patron of the Stroudwater Textile Trust and Cotswold Canal Trust. Bisley-With-Lypiatt Parish Council
Please see the Parish Council website for Ward information and minutes of Council meetings. www.bisley-with-lypiatt.gov.uk.
The Parish Council (PC) is busy with the project to develop a Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) as an addition to Stroud District Council’s Local Plan to plan how the area will progress over the next 10 years. Consultations are under way with Village Hall meetings in the 3 constituent Wards to canvas opinion with ALL residents – so any ideas you have on the way YOU want YOUR area to develop would be happily received. Feel free to contact us if you want to share ideas about our future in Oakridge Ward. Ward Councillors - Tony Martin (brx44@ymail.com – 07710 800290), Roger Budgeon, Dennis Robbins Clerk - Debbie Meredith 01452 771089 admin@bisley-withlypiatt.gov.uk From The Ground
Oakridge Parochial School Allotment Project
Read The February/March
Update Here ... OAT (Oakridge Allotment Team) Tel: 07983 65414 Email: info@fromtheground.co.uk The John Taylor Foundation
The John Taylor Foundation is a local charity that issues grants to students and apprentices to assist with the cost of tools, books, or equipment.
If you'd like to apply for a grant and you live in the ancient parish of Bisley, and are under 25, please apply in writing to Mrs P Bashford, 37 Windyridge, Bisley, GL6 7DA, stating your name, age, college, course or employer. |
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Did You Know? Siccaridge Wood
Siccaridge Wood is one of the few places in the Cotswolds in which the hazel dormouse makes its home, numbers of which are closely monitored as part of a national scheme, while wood ant nests can be found on the ground and silver washed fritillary and comma butterflies flit around the open rides. The Arts and Crafts Movement Oakridge was a hub of the Arts and Crafts Movement and famous painters, furniture makers, poets and other interesting people have lived here. Find out more at our Oakridge History Archive. Daneway Banks Just beyond Siccaridge Wood lies Daneway Banks, where the steep sides have almost lunar like bumps made by generations of yellow meadow ants. A classic example of limestone grassland, it is also home to the large blue butterfly which has been recently re-introduced after being extinct in the UK for several decades. |
Hire Our Village Hall Why not hire our Village hall?
Garden Club - Local Links Download the Gloucestershire Federation of Gardening Societies Spring Newsletter.
Visit the Generous Gardener Website for news of Gardening Lecture Days, Masterclasses and Specialist Plant Sales at The Coach House Garden, Ampney Crucis. Find out about the new Cafe and what's on at Miserden Nursery. |
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Oakridge Events Diary If you would you like us to add an event - please get in touch through the Contact Us page. Full calendar and "What's On" available here. Village Hall Bookings Calendar Please see here for a guide to availability
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"What's On" Newsletter We protect your information and privacy strictly in accordance with all legal requirements and we do not share your personal information with any third party.
What's On Editor: Victoria Beard Tel: 01285 760339 Email: editoroakridgewhatson@gmail.com
Regulars
Out and About Chalford Sports & Social Club
From time to time events and courses at the Chalford Sports & Social Club are included in 'Whats On' which you can download above or visit their website at chalford-ssc.co.uk Bisley "Well Dressing"
Bisley's famous "Well Dressing" custom, dating from 1863, is held every Ascention day - Find out more. Useful Links |
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Artists and Artisans In Residence Find out about the Artists and Artisans who live and work in Oakridge, Including:
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Country and Wildlife |
From the Archive
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Delve into the Archive at oakridgearchives.omeka.net
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And buy the Book! 
You can buy this beautiful 175 page fully illustrated hardback 'Oakridge a History' for just £12 from Ollie's Shop or by mail from John Loosely, Email :
johnloosley40@gmail.com |
oakridgevillage.org is generously supported by a community grant from Bisley-with-Lypiatt Parish Council
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If you notice any content that needs to be corrected then please get in touch through the Contact Us page.
No material from this site may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright owners
While every effort has been made to maintain accuracy, no responsibility is accepted for any errors in content.
If you notice any content that needs to be corrected then please get in touch through the Contact Us page.
