Sample Articles
Back to Sample Articles Listing
The real 'Lark Rise' - Juniper Hill to Cottisford
From Oxfordshire Life: September 2005
This 3½-mile walk around this rural corner of Oxfordshire is a walk through history. Starting in the "little hamlet" of Juniper Hill (Lark Rise) on to "the mother village" of Cottisford (Fordlow), by way of Flora Thompson's village house and the allotments that kept hunger at bay in the 1880's. The route follows the men's walk across the fields to the farm as well as the church and village school.
The landscape around the childhood home of Flora Thompson (Lark Rise to Candleford, Penguin) is still recognisable although the 1880 "poor hamlet" of Lark Rise (actually Juniper Hill) is now an attractive and much sought after village location.
Her books provide a fascinating and colourful insight into poor village life, a stark contrast to the more genteel and wealthy vision of 19th century life depicted by authors such as Jane Austen. Cottage rents of 1 shilling to half a crown (5-12½p) might seem amazing today but were in line with the average weekly labourers wage of 10 shilling (50p).
There is a paucity of nineteenth century literature written by rural people, about rural people and Flora's elegantly written books are a unique Oxfordshire heritage about the life and times of local village life.
"........the pig was an important member of the family and its health and condition were regularly reported in letters to children away from home, together with news of their brothers and sisters. Sunday........visitors........came not to see the family, but the pig, and would lounge with the owner against the pigsty door........praising his points or turning up their own noses in criticism."
(Lark Rise to Candleford, Flora Thompson, Penguin, 1987, p 24)
Cottisford and Juniper Hill are half way between Bicester and Brackley, just off the A43. Park beside the recreation round just beyond the village sign for Juniper Hill. Walk into the village and on the left is the Fox Inn ("Wagon and Horses" of Lark Rise) now a private house. Continue ahead to Larkwell house (0.14 ml) on the right, which still has one of the covered village wells in the front garden.
The road ahead leads up to "the turnpike" where Flora occasionally saw a horse and cart although now it's the A43 carrying 23,000 vehicles a day........