1st July, 2008 Issue 21 Oxfordshire Record Office, St Luke’s Church, Temple Road, Cowley, Oxford, OX4 2HT. Telephone 01865 398200. Email
[email protected]: www.oxfordshire.gov.uk LARK RISE OBSERVATIONS THE SMITHY AT FRINGFORD Page 1 SEE PAGES 2 and 3 - for ‘Observations’ 1st July, 2008 Issue 21 LARK RISE OBSERVATIONS Anyone watching the recent BBC adaptations of FloraThompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy will be aware that, although filmed elsewhere, the novels are set in the north-east corner of Oxfordshire with Lark Rise representing Juniper Hill and Candleford supposedly an amalgam of Banbury, Bicester, Brackley and Buckingham. Flora Thompson (nee Timms) lived at End House in Juniper Hill, a hamlet of Cottisford where she attended the local Board school and church on Sundays. Her job in the post office was at Fringford (about 4-5 miles away). In the novels Flora called herself Laura and in the TV series her parents are called Robert and Emma Timmins. In real life her family name was Timms and her parents were called Albert and Emma. The End House where they lived in Juniper Hill can still be seen today (part of a modern dwelling) and its location can be seen on an OS map, c1900. The Cottisford parish registers reveal that 10 children of Albert and Emma were baptized in the church, starting with Martha on 13th Nov 1875 and ending with Cecil Barrie on 6th Mar 1898 (over 20 years, by which time Emma was in her mid-40s). Four of the children, including Martha, Albert (born 1882), Ellen Mary (born 1893) and Cecil Barrie (buried 4th Apr 1900) died in infancy.