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.
Village Box Office Now Open for Event Bookings! - Click Here!
Latest News!
For more detailed information on many of these items and much more, download the current edition of What's On. Why not sign up to our events mailing list?
Please do sign up for your free tickets at the box office to let us know you're coming, and for the bring and share lunch use this link to put your name down for buffet items needed.
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The Future of "What's On"
For several years, the What’s On has been printed ‘in-house’ on a machine purchased by Alex and Gill Davis with grant funding. Unfortunately this machine is now deemed obsolete, as ink is no longer available. The most likely way forward will be to outsource the printing to a local printing company, but this will of course come at a cost.
The What’s On already receives a grant from the Parish Council, but will need to generate additional income to meet the printing costs. It is proposed that initially this should be via voluntary donation from individuals and village groups, which together with the grant will go some way toward ensuring that those who want a paper copy will still receive one. This situation will need to be reviewed if sufficient income is not forthcoming. I would be interested to receive any comments or suggestions, or can provide banking details for anyone wishing to make a donation – please email me at editoroakridgewhatson@gmail.com, or call 01285 760339. If you’d like a free digital copy direct to your email inbox, please sign up here. Pancake Lunch!
SHROVE TUESDAY 21st FEBRUARY
FROM 12 NOON AT THE VILLAGE HALL CHOICE OF SOUP WITH ROLL PLOUGHMANS SALAD PANCAKES WITH LEMON £7.50 IN AID OF HALL FUNDS 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 is held at the Village Hall on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at a price of £8 per head.
All welcome, arrive from 12 noon, to sit for 12.30. A wonderful chance to catch up with friends, or meet new. If you would like to come but haven’t already put your name on the list the previous month, or need to cancel your place, please leave a message for Ali Mills on 01285 760568. This must be done by the Friday before the Lunch Club at the latest, to allow for food ordering and preparation. 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
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 SELF EMPLOYED CLEANER required We are looking for a flexible individual to clean the Hall on a regular self-employed basis, potentially up to 2 hours per week. Flexible hours to suit, depending on the down-time of Hall usage. c.£15/hr. Please contact Jane Gregg for more details janegregg@hotmail.com or 07748684156 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 (No password required) 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?! 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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Cinema comes to Oakridge! - Next screening on 29 March
Using the new 3.5m big screen, state of the art projector and Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound system at Oakridge Village Hall we are now starting a program of film that we hope will have broad appeal. A cash only bar will be available before and after the film. For licensing reasons we are not able to advertise the name of each film publicly, but the good news is that as a member of the What's On Mailing List you can find out now, and continue to be notified in advance of the film title whenever a film night is planned. Sign up to the mailing list now at www.oakridgevillage.org/mailinglist for advance notice of these events and others! Doors open at 1845 for a 1930 start. Tickets are just £5 (cash only) on the door including light snacks. To help the team plan for numbers, please visit our box office to reserve a seat but remember to pay £5 cash on arrival - www.oakridgevillage.org/boxoffice Garden Club
What a wet, grey, cold month January has been, with only a few odd days to get out and tidy a very scruffy garden. Snowdrops are out, and hellebores are showing colour. My hazel bush is covered with catkins, so it’s all going on and really will not be long before the evenings begin to get lighter. I think it’s a good time to change and alter the garden, digging up and splitting large clumps of border plants, and trimming overgrown shrubs.
I was interested to read a 4-page article on Tamsin Westhorpe, who gave us an excellent talk last year. It showed her beautiful garden near Leominster that she owns, with her sister running the barn restaurant. Our committee have booked a trip in Spring with lunch in the barn. Something to look forward to. The February meeting is always the AGM, but we hope to get through the business side nice and quickly, and enjoy our speaker, Felicity Down, who will tell us how to have colour all year round in the garden. Gill Wimperis 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. History Group
We have had a break over Christmas and New Year and wish everyone a healthy and peaceful 2023.
Following the successful session last November sorting paper and photographic archives, we should now like to turn our attention to improving the website, especially the search system. Martin Wyatt did a fantastic job setting this up and Andrew has done an excellent job in maintaining it since he left. However, the web system has changed and the website now needs a major rearrangement to enable it to be searched more effectively. Andrew does not have time to carry this out in addition to all the other work he does for the village hall and the village website, so we are now desperately appealing for somebody with suitable background web capabilities to learn this system and take on simplifying it. Can you help? Or do you know anyone who could help? If so, please contact John or Kay. The next meeting will be on February 22nd when John Loosley will be talking about the Doringtons of Lypiatt Park. On 22nd March a member of the Corinium Museum staff will be talking about the highlights of the museum displays. Kay Rhodes 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 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. 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 Fancy some TaiChi?
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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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While every effort has been made to maintain accuracy, no responsibility is accepted for any errors in content.
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