Welcome to A Shepherd’s Stone by Helen Castle
Richard Widdows (aka Withers) was a shepherd who lived for more than eight decades in the village of Great Rollright in West Oxfordshire. He is commemorated with a headstone in St Andrew’s churchyard that gives his age as 104, when he died in 1910.
This newsletter, focusing on the life of Widdows, is a lens for exploring rural social history – the lives of the people who truly lived off the land in the 19th century. Mechanisation means that only a handful of local people today farm the local fields. Most of Rollright’s inhabitants, like myself, now work in jobs that are disconnected from their immediate surroundings. In 1851, there were over 80 agricultural labourers and farmer’s boys – one farmer’s girl – and 9 farmers living in the village.
It’s my hope that if you’re interested in local history or human stories, you’ll be drawn to subscribe to this free newsletter.
It would be wonderful to hear from you if you’re a descendant of Widdows or you have local knowledge that you’d like to share.
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
Who am I?
I am a publisher and editor, who lives in Great Rollright. A Shepherd’s Stone is a side project and passion. My ‘real job’ is as Director of Publishing and Learning Content at the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects).
I have been lucky enough to have had a career in publishing for over thirty years, working on architecture journals, books and online content. My fascination with architecture grew out of studying art history at university and an interest in social history. I am intrigued by how people live both as individuals and in communities. It is this that attracted me to Richard Widdows as a subject. It’s not only the facts that I want to uncover about his life, but also a sense of how he lived and what his experiences might have been
The unanticipated benefit of my research has been that it has started lots of conversations locally. It has also revealed to me a whole world of archives and enthusiastic and generous people who work in them.
Key sources on Great Rollright
Carol Dingle, Farmhouses and Cottages of Great Rollright: A look at the changes to the eighteenth century village farmhouses and cottages and a glimpse of the lives of some of the occupants (2022)
Reginald W Jeffery, The Manors and Advowson of Great Rollright (1927).
Significant primary research on Great Rollright has been undertaken by Mark Page for the Victoria County History’s Oxfordshire vol. XXI - Chipping Norton and Environs: https://www.history.ac.uk/research/victoria-county-history/county-histories-progress/oxfordshire/oxfordshire-vol-xxi-chipping-norton-and-environs
Image used for wordmark and cover
Jean-François Millet, Shepherd Returning with His Flock, c 1860, Corcoran Collection (William A Clark Collection), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. In the public domain.
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