The Victoria County History of Oxfordshire (VCH)

The Victoria County History of Oxfordshire (VCH) is part of a national local-history research and publication project overseen from within the University of London, but organized (and funded) county by county through varied local partnerships. The small central team sits within the Centre for the History of People, Place, and Community in the Institute of Historical Research, while the Oxfordshire research team of four is employed by Oxfordshire County Council as part of its Heritage Services, but funded mainly by the independent VCH Oxfordshire Trust, whose trustees are all unpaid. The research team (all academically trained historians) are also associate History Faculty members.

The project's primary function is to research and publish a comprehensive history of every town, village, and parish in the country, based on rigorous academic work but catering for a wide audience, from professional historians and archaeologists through to local people. Its approach is holistic and cross-disciplinary, combining intensive archival research with investigation of landscape, buildings, and archaeological data, to build up a view of how places have changed and developed from prehistory through to the present day. The histories themselves are thematic, looking systematically at landscape, settlement, and buildings; landownership; farming, trade, and industry; social history; and religious history.

Though still published in book form (the VCH Big Red Books, each one covering a particular area), the work is also made available online: the published volumes at British History Online, and draft work in progress on the VCH's own website. The team also regularly engages with the wider community, giving talks to local groups, contributing to county history organizations such as OAHS, OLHA, OBR, and ORS, and (where appropriate) working with volunteer groups and local history groups in the areas being researched.

For further information, contact the Oxfordshire County Editor Dr Simon Townley, or the other team members Dr Simon Draper, Dr Stephen Mileson, and Dr Mark Page.