CAN anyone tell me where this picture was taken? It was given to me to scan for the Bampton Archive by the son of Rose Gerring, who died last year aged about 94.

She lived at Sandford House, Bampton, which is along the track which runs down the side of the Old Grammar School (which now houses our library and Vesey room and is the building used as the cottage hospital in the TV series Downton Abbey).

Rose and her husband Arthur farmed in Bampton all their married life. There are Gerrings in Bampton and Buckland who may have been related two or three generations back.

The photograph is clearly very old, judging by the dress of the people and its brown sepia colour. There is an ox roast going on, so there must have been a reason for such an expensive celebration. I am guessing that it may be Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

My first reaction was that the row of cottages behind the ox roast are Bourton Cottages and the building on the right is the Old Grammar School in Bampton, but when I studied the windows of the Old Grammar School, it is clearly not that building.

Bourton Cottages were completely rebuilt in 1906 so I can’t compare windows etc.

I feel sure the picture was taken in the local area, but can anyone tell me where? It is such a pity that nothing was written on the back of it.

JANET ROUSE
Weald
Bampton