As part of the Wytham Woods Community History Project, Amy Perkis (community member and intern) and I have been researching the history of outdoor education in the woods. Focusing mainly on the interwar period, we discovered a wealth of primary sources, some of which included accounts from children about the happiness they found through learning outside at Wytham. Other sources included reflections from teachers, including information about the subjects they taught, the concerns they had for some students’ ability to access the woods, and the satisfaction they found in being able to teach at Hill End, a site which remains an invaluable source of forest school and adventure learning to young people today.
During a presentation Amy and I have at a community meeting at Wytham Village Hall in early summer 2024, we reflected on how these sources, in addition to providing gateways into the emotional experiences of our historical subjects, created our own emotional responses when we read the text or looked at a photograph or a child’s drawings depicting aspects of the history of outdoor education at Wytham. We also shared our sense of warmth and welcome when we visited Hill End with local historian Mervyn Hughes, and when we viewed many more contemporary sources, particularly detailing the history of Hill End from the mid/late twentieth century onwards, in Mervyn’s collection.
My own research includes sensory and emotional histories of places such as Wytham Woods, but all too often we forget to stop and reflect on our own emotional experience of researching together, learning from each other, and hearing family stories, such as those shared at the Wytham Village Hall event. Such moments of coming together to share stories of a place are also moments of sharing and exchanging emotions, including those involved in our research and in our lived experiences.
Amy and I were both so grateful for the opportunity to attend the community meeting and to have the opportunity to collaborate on our research into the history of outdoor learning at Wytham. Thank you to all who attended and shared their stories and to the Oxford Community History Project for your support!
Georgina M. Montgomery, Professor at Michigan State University and participate in the Oxford Community History Wytham Woods Project
