The Drawings of Joan Lawrence - Hook Norton · The rear garden of Wisteria House, where the owner, Timothy Hunt, kept bees. July and August 1972: Thatching at Down End, Hook Norton

H o o k N o r t o n L o c a l H i s t o r y G r o u p

1 www.hook-norton.org.uk/history

The Drawings of Joan Lawrence

Joan Lawrence lived in Hook Norton from 1958 to 1983. Earlier she had studied art

at the Blackpool School of Art and the Regional College of Art in Manchester, and as

Miss Sharratt came to the village to teach art at the newly opened Secondary

Modern School on the Bourne. Whilst living in the village, she met and married the

Revd. Tom Lawrence. They lived at Gingerbread Cottage in Down End until Tom

retired, and then moved to Great Rollright in 1983.

Throughout her twenty-five years in Hook Norton, Joan taught art part-time in

the local schools and at the evening centre. During this period she drew or painted

village scenes and often had them published. Splendidly observed and drafted, her

drawings record the village of the 1960s and 1970s with a precision which makes it

clear just how the village looked at that time and how it has changed since. She also

collected photographs that local people were throwing away and made copies of

photos being collected by Mr Gibbs of Nill Farm; this valuable collection has now

generously been handed over to the Village Museum and Archive.

In 2000 Joan moved to Bloxham and then in 2010 to Chichester to be with her

family. She will, she says, always retain a deep affection for the villages, countryside

and people in North Oxfordshire. Her recollections of this village remain clear:

I think Hook Norton was a happy village, with an underlying optimism that things

were improving. There were good employment prospects for men, and more

educational opportunities for women and young people to further their careers. Many

more people were improving their homes, feeling that they were able to afford cars,

and women were learning to drive!1

This was the village captured in her drawings and paintings. Some of her paintings

of the village may still be seen: one fine example – of Down End – hangs in the Field

Study Room of the Primary School, and another – her portrait of the late Bill Clarke –

in the Brewery. A fine view of the brewery is reprinted on the dust jacket of David

1 In a letter to the editor, 18 October 2015.



Eddershaw’s A Country Brewery: Hook Norton, 1849-1999 (1999). Her drawings

were made more widely available, as calendars, maps, Christmas cards and various

other publications, now long out of circulation. We are therefore delighted to

reproduce many of them here, as they offer an unusual and fascinating glimpse of

Hook Norton in the 1960s and 1970s – though the sharp-eyed will notice how the

artist has occasionally moved buildings around to enhance the view.

Some of these pictures come from the Village Museum and Archive, and

some through the kindness of Linda Buchanan and Rosemary Rye. Most of them

have been supplied by Joan Lawrence herself, as have almost all the comments.

We are grateful to her for allowing us to publish them on this website; the copyright

to the pictures still lies with her. We would be very grateful if anyone who owns any

other drawings – especially her maps of the village – would allow us to copy them,

The drawings below are organised into distinct groups. First come those that

appeared in 1972 in a calendar celebrating the traditional crafts that were still

practised in Hook Norton; this calendar was sponsored by a local engineering firm,

Bencere Ltd., run by Barry and Rosemary Rye. Secondly, we have her drawings of

St Peter’s: some of these appeared in a brief guide to the church written by

Christopher Wigg,2 a few of which appear in “Building the Parish Church”, at

https://hook-norton.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Building-the-Parish-

Church.pdf. Thirdly, we reproduce some of the Christmas cards she illustrated with

scenes of Hook Norton in the 1960s and ‘70s, together with other winter scenes (did

it really snow so much in those days?). Finally, we conclude with drawings of the

village at other seasons during that period. In all these drawings the minute figures

nearly all represent identifiable people – and even identifiable dogs and cats!

Donald Ratcliffe

© Joan Lawrence

2 Christopher Wigg et al., A Guide to the Churches of Swerford, Great Rollright and Hook

Norton (rev. ed., n. p., 1990).

https://hook-norton.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Building-the-Parish-Church.pdf




Traditional Crafts in Hook Norton, 1972

January and February 1972: Testing for density at Hook Norton Brewery

March and April 1972: Interlacing a Hedge.

The view is from Cross Banks Lane, just above the junction with Swerford Road, with

Wheatsheaf House (then a pub) shown as visible at the entrance to the village.

The trees below the junction now block this view.



May and June 1972: Bee Keeping

The rear garden of Wisteria House, where the owner, Timothy Hunt, kept bees.

July and August 1972: Thatching at Down End, Hook Norton.

Looking up Bell’s Lane, where the modern bungalows have already been built. The

two cottages on the left have not yet been united into one.



September and October 1972: Baking the Harvest Loaves.

Established 17 years before on the site of earlier bakeries, the Bell Hill Bakery

supplied the village, outlying farms and nearby towns with home-baked bread. Mr

Prew is taking the loaves out of their tins, his son John Prew is turning the loaves

round in the oven, and Mrs Hudson is weighing out the dough. The family arose at

4am every day to bake in readiness for the shop opening at 8.30am.

November and December 1972

Hook Norton Pottery, East End Farmhouse, with Russell Collins.

Russell started the pottery in 1969 and established an international reputation.



St Peter’s Parish Church

Some other drawings of the church appear in “Building the Parish Church”,





The Nave and Chancel of St Peter’s between 1958 and 1983

The Rood Screen had been erected in 1952 and was removed in 1985.



The Village In Snow

The Brewery looks as it still does.

The dray horses have not been a consistent feature of local beer deliveries,

though they are now an established hallmark of the brewery.



Saturday mornings on the High Street

Superficially, this scene hasn’t changed very much. The village shop seems divided

by private houses, and the high-level handloom weavers’ window is still visible.

But there are more businesses: on the left, Martin Stubbington’s van stands outside

the then electricity and television shop. Across the road, there are villagers outside

Barclay’s Bank, at the foot of Queen Street, while others queue outside Frank Horn’s

butcher’s shop (with the blind). Other shoppers stand outside what is now the

Village Shop, then called Central Stores.

The gentleman with a walking stick crossing the street on the left is Colonel George

‘Jock’ Colchester of Southrop House. Mr Cooper, from Bell Hill, is sitting on the low

wall, chatting to people as they pass by.



Carol Singing on the High Street

The lower side of the High Street looks familiar to modern eyes,

but more commercial.

Wisteria House and Bell Hill stand in the distance. Martin Stubbington’s van stands

outside the television shop, while nearer to us we see Bob and Vera Manning’s

grocery shop with the petrol pumps. Bob is arranging Christmas trees for sale, while

a neighbour is brushing the snow from the forecourt of his elderly parents’ home.

People listen to the carol singers; the dogs have their own agenda.



Members of the Hook Norton Brass Band play carols on The Green.

There are more thatched roofs than now; the “New House” appears to have been

built on the back right. The house at the far end, itself built out of the ruins of a fire in

the early 1900s,3 burned down again after Joan drew this picture, and was replaced

by the present longer dwelling.

3 The effects of the fire of the early 1900s may be seen in [James Clarke, ed.], Hook Norton Fire Brigade: A Celebration [Hook Norton, 1996], pages 18-20.



Down End under Snow

The snow has fallen this year on Down End, where Joan Lawrence lived in

Gingerbread Cottage, off to the left.

As ever, people sit on the wall above the old tite; dog walkers stop and chatter, while

a cat taunts a dog. Only the number of birds on the overhead wires look out of

place; there are more trees for them nowadays.

The three people on the left are Mr and Mrs George Russell, who are setting off for a

walk with their two husky dogs, and are talking to Mr Symmons.

In the background, Mr Marshall stands in his cottage doorway, while Mrs Marshall

distributes sweets to the children.



The Triangle

Children playing at the junction of the Triangle and the corner of the Sibford Road.

The Old Surgery stands much as now on the right.

Would traffic nowadays allow children to play in the road, even in snow?

The Pottery, East End Farmhouse

Children play in the snow, and Miss ‘Bill’ Baker and Mrs Hainsworth walk their dog.



Children out to play in the snow talk to Joyce Windeyer’s horse.

Joyce lived at Hillside Cottage, which stands on the green on Ropeway, outside

Wheatsheaf House at the foot of the Swerford Road. The house has been

considerably (but tastefully) extended, and renamed Beanacre Cottage.

The pillars of the southern railway viaduct can be seen in the distance, and can that

be the beginnings of Beanacre on the left?



Taking the Christmas tree past The Pear Tree



Looking across the wooden bridge, up Bridge Hill, towards the church.



The Village at Other Seasons

Southrop

The old Wheatsheaf pub, on the left, was already a private house,

Mrs Windeyer’s cottage, ‘Hillside’ (now Beanacre Cottage), is in the foreground.

Richard and Elaine Helyer’s cottage is being rethatched.

There is no sign yet of Beanacre, but the viaduct pillars are visible on the far right.

The large tree on the left (recently felled) reputedly marks the spot where in the

seventeenth-century Quakers held their open air prayer meetings.

The telephone box has long gone.



Down Town

Once called ‘Bell Bottom’, the name ‘Down Town’ is now almost unknown.

Some call it ‘Willow Tree Green’.

Mrs Hudson and Mr Prew’s Bakery stands on the left hand side (note the blind),

Bridge House in the centre,

and Bob Player’s interior decorating shop on the right.



The Pear Tree on a summer weekday morning.

The brewery is brewing in the distance, a view now obscured by trees.

The Pear Tree in Summer Time



The Pear Tree in Spring Time, 1968

Watercolour

© Joan Lawrence

Documents

The Drawings of Joan Lawrence - Hook Norton · The rear garden of Wisteria House, where the owner, Timothy Hunt, kept bees. July and August 1972: Thatching at Down End, Hook Norton