Exhibition shows how family firm helped build Witney (From Witney Gazette)

Exhibition shows how family firm helped build Witney

7:00am Wednesday 19th September 2012 in News

AN exhibition and new book about a building firm that helped to create Witney is set to be launched in the town.

The Bartletts were a family of builders who were based in the yard off High Street that now houses Witney & District Museum.

A World Gone By tells their history from the 1840s up to their sale to Elmers in the 1970s, including work on Witney’s Wesleyan Church and Corn Exchange.

The exhibition, which will open at the museum tomorrow, includes an early 20th century fire extinguisher and drawing equipment and architectural plans from the 1900s.

The new book focuses on recollections from Ernest Bartlett Taylor, who rescued the firm in the 1930s, and contains his previously unpublished pictures.

Custodian of the artefacts Rosemary Warner, pictured left with Dr Jane Cavell and some of the exhibits, said: “It is extraordinary because it goes into minute detail about buildings and ways of life that do not exist anymore.”

The book will be available to buy at the museum from tomorrow. Picture: OX54393 Denis Kennedy