Avon Dassett Local History group is a project-focused group and work together on matters associated with the local history of the village. We upload sources and publish articles. In 2024 we created an exhibition for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in the Reading  Room which was transformed into a war room for the day. We also had an outing to the launch of the book on the lost village of Southend. Information on our latest projects and publications may be found below.

Latest Project

• D-Day Exhibition (A commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day which includes information on Avon Dassett’s own D-Day hero, Private James Kempley)

VE Day Commemorative Newspaper

• Avon Dassett VE Day Newspaper

World War I Project

• The Extraordinary and the Everyday: A Year in the Life of a Rural Community (funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund)

Diamond Jubilee Project

• A Chronicle of Avon Dassett by Jill Burgess and Sarah Richardson (funded by Warwickshire County Council)

Avon Dassett on TV

• Central TV’s Heart of the Country (2003) – many thanks to Tony Hadland for providing this copy

Articles

• Coronation Celebrations in Avon Dassett, 1953 programme kindly supplied by MW and DEM Watts 
• The Sealey Family of Avon Dassett (articles and photographs by Winifride Mary Therese Hadland and Tony Hadland)
• Trees and Grounds of Bitham Hall Avon Dassett information kindly supplied by Sandra Rice 
• Syd Watts Peak Canada and Avon Dassett by Kerrie Andrew
• Bitham Hall, Avon Dassett and Clonalis House, County Roscommon by Pyers O’Conor-Nash
• Crime and Society in Nineteenth-Century Avon Dassett by Sarah Richardson
• The Judd Family of Avon Dassett by David Judd
• The Red Horses of Tysoe by Sarah Richardson
• The Kingsmill Memorial, Radway and the English Civil War by Sarah Richardson
• Myrtilla, the Slave Buried at Oxhill by Sarah Richardson
• Avon Dassett and the Lay Subsidy of 1322 by Sarah Richardson
• Avon Dassett and the Hearth Tax by Sarah Richardson
• A Brief History of Avon Dassett by Sarah Richardson

Avon Dassett Local History Sources

• See this page for our transcriptions of sources, ready to download

Aims of the Local History Group

• researching the village and local community;
• researching particular local buildings;
• collecting village memories and sources;
• writing for the website or for publication;
• inviting guest speakers

For more information, or to get involved contact Sarah Richardson.