A YOUNG history buff from Witney has spent a year exploring the weird and wonderful past of towns and villages throughout Oxfordshire.

Last year, Will Hazell launched Local History is Awesome, a website with a vibrant range of articles casting a wry eye over areas including Witney, Banbury, Eynsham, Burford and Chipping Norton.

The 23-year-old said his goal is to inspire people with an interest in history by writing in a light-hearted and accessible way about stories that happened right on their doorstep.

Mr Hazell said: “When I was a kid I had every single one of the Horrible Histories. I would take them into school every day and hand them out to my friends. It was those books that first got me into reading.

“Now I’ve got a blog and last year I wrote an article about the local history of Witney and interesting things that people don’t know about. It was so popular I started the website, realising I could do the same thing for other towns and villages in the area.”

The tile of his first article was Witney’s History of War, Murder and Drunkenness. Others include Burford’s history of Murder, Mistresses and Misbehaviour and Eynsham’s history of Robbers, Rabbles and Riots.

Mr Hazell said that local history can interest people by showing them things that happened where they live.

He continued: “Every time I do an article it’s just the best feeling ever. There is an upsurge of people saying ‘wow’ about the things that took place in their town.

“For example, there was an axe murder right in the middle of Witney, in the alleyway next to The Blue Boar pub. It’s a fascinating story and it happened a stone’s throw away from where I bought my first pint.

“Local history can be a way into bigger history. If you can learn how a war or a social change affected people where you live you can begin to understand it on a larger scale.”

Using old newspapers and information from books and local historical societies, researching an article can be a time consuming process, but Mr Hazell said it’s pleasing to see people sharing his interests.

He said: “It’s very satisfying to know that I’m not alone with this. Sometimes you do end up feeling a bit weird with this fascination.

"It's nice to think I play a small part in influencing people. I'm happy because I've gone out and done this myself. It's my baby."

Now Mr Hazell has others contacting him and asking whether they can produce an article for his website on their town or village, something he is more than happy for people to do. At the moment he intends to carry on covering this area, but hopes to see the website expand as time goes on.

Visit the website at localhistoryisawesome.co.uk