Click on the title of a talk below to find out who gives it, how much they charge and their contact details. Please note that inclusion in this list does not signify OLHA’s recommendation.
1066: Oxfordshire’s part in the Norman Conquest – a light-hearted romp
1940s Girl Guides, a forgotten army of 750,000: amazing facts and stories
350 years of glasshouses at the Oxford Botanic Garden
A guides’ guide: working in historic houses in the 21st century
A man and his shed – Herbert George Mullard and the Cowley Concrete Co, 1895 to 1976
A moment in time: the Cotswolds lives of the Keble brothers
A walk around the Chavasse family
Abingdon Abbey’s deer park and Radley Large Wood, a wood through time
Aftermath: the peace 1919 – 1939
Afternoon tea: its history and etiquette
Air Transport Auxiliary: unsung heroes of World War II
Aircraft production at South Marston
Alice’s adventures in Oxford: Lewis Carroll and the River Thames (and many variants)
All that glitters: Woodstock’s cut steel industry
Apples! The myth and mystery of England’s favourite fruit
Archaeology of Stowe Landscape Garden
Architecture of Oxford University
Armistice 1918 and after: some local perspectives
Artists in Wonderland: the Pre-Raphaelites in Oxford
Australian Flying Corps in the Cotswolds in World War I
Banbury Munitions Factory during the Great War
Battle of Cropredy Bridge and the Oxfordshire Campaign, 1644
Beer, sausages and marmalade: Oxford food and drink in the 19th century
Binsey and Medley: centuries of treacle, cheese cakes, ‘custard, cider, cakes and ale’
Bodleian Library, Oxford University: a tour
British Civil Wars, 1642-51, in Art
British suffrage movement: the gender agenda
Buckinghamshire in the Civil War, 1642-6
Can onions cure earache? Medical advice from the 1700s
Canal history: the world to Wiltshire, from 520BC to the present day
Canal people: the very many people who can be described as such
Canal restoration: benefits to wildlife and the environment
Capability Brown at Radley: rediscovering a lost landscape
Caversham Park’s 930 years at the centre of history
Cemeteries of Oxford – more than a century of history
Ceremony, celebrity and corruption: The honours system in twentieth-century Britain
Charles I and Oxford – Pre-Civil War
Child labour in 19th-century Oxfordshire
Children and war: children’s experiences of the Second World War in Oxfordshire
City of Oxford during the Civil War, 1642-46
Coffee and coffee houses: their arrival in Oxford in the 17th century
Coleshill – Nerve Centre of British Resistance
Common lodging-houses in Victorian England
Common right – private property: how enclosure shaped the Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire landscape
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC): its foundation, history, and role in the modern world
Corruption of Parliament? MPs, money and public service in modern Britain
Cotswolds cornucopia: a whirlwind tour taking in sites and stories, landmarks and surprises
Cotswolds Navy: what’s in a name?
Cowley Road, in the context of the social history of East Oxford (n.b. this is a guided walk, but it can be offered as a virtual tour, via zoom or other on-line platform)
Cream tea: its history and etiquette
Crime and punishment in Victorian Britain
Dad’s underground army: the Auxiliary Units of the British Resistance Organisation
Daniel ‘Damnable’ Harris: Oxford Castle gaoler extraordinaire
Defences of Southern England and the South Midlands in World War II
Deserted settlements of Radley
Disaster waiting: the Severn Bridge Disaster
Drovers’ roads in Oxfordshire and beyond
Early Modern Oxford and Poverty: a leader or follower?
Early women professional gardeners, including the founders of Waterperry
Einstein and the refugee scholars in Oxford
Eighteenth-century private theatricals and Jane Austen’s family connections in the Cotswolds
Elizabeth Wisdom(e): the Chipping Norton murderess?
English prophets: Mother Shipton, Joanna Southcott and John Wroe, a curious history
Fair Mile Hospital: a quick overview
Famous local folk: the people behind the blue plaques of South Oxfordshire
Farnborough Hall and the development of a Georgian estate
Fight against fascism in Oxford
First World War – the first two years
First World War – from the Somme to the Armistice
Fishponds and fishing in Oxfordshire and around: an archaeological perspective
Five generations at Fair Mile Hospital
Five RAF Indian Pilots of the Great War
Flower Pots: A Torquay Pottery Flora
Food of the Gods: adventures in chocolate
Fore and aft: the Purton Ship Graveyard
Free Spirits of Oxfordshire: twenty true lives from history
From Axtell to Zacharias: the men who built Oxford
Further tales from the Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) Project
Glenn Miller: the magic and the mystery
Glimpses of the other Oxford through the eyes of a Victorian mission
Grave matters: stories from memorials in and around the Cotswolds
Great Exhibition of 1851: a crystal vision of Victorian Britain
Great Western Railway Abingdon Branch: a short history
Green Man trail in Oxfordshire
Harcourt Arboretum: the first 300 years
Hardit Singh Malik: the Flying Sikh, 1914-18
Henley Workhouse: the story of Townlands
How many architects named Gilbert Scott do you know?
How the 1940s Brownies helped win World War II, including their secret work for MI9
How the English fell in love with tea
How to publish your local history (with Oxfordshire case studies)
Impact of the First World War on Oxford’s women’s lives
In defence of the drift: a Gloster boy abroad
Indian Army during the First World War: an Oxf and Bucks Light Infantry perspective
Industrial archaeology in your garage, shed and attic
It’s a Girl’s Life in the Army
James Ryman, art dealer and picture frame maker: “The Richest Man in Oxford”
James Sadler and me: how the first Englishman to fly enabled me to overcome lifelong height anxiety
James Sadler, Oxford pastry cook and the first English aeronaut
Jericho: Oxford’s ‘dangerously hospitable’ first planned suburb
Jericho: Oxford’s first industrial suburb, from cholera epidemics to gentrification
John Taylor the Waterpoet: mad, sad, glad and bad Civil War Oxford
Jutland to junkyard: scuttling the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow
Keble College, Oxford, and The Light of the World by William Holman-Hunt
Kingerlee: the family and the building firm
Leisure and entertainment in Victorian and Edwardian Oxford
Life on the Home Front in World War II: how was the country kept going?
Light in the darkest hour: Dunkirk’s Little Ships
Literary Cotswolds: From Chaucer to Jilly Cooper via Tolkien and Thomas the Tank Engine
Living the Lexicon: James Murray and the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary
Lord Nuffield’s great generosity to the Oxford colleges
Lost villages of Oxfordshire (or Northamptonshire / Warwickshire / Buckinghamshire)
Lydney’s lost fleet: the Lydney Ship Graveyard
Meet at dawn, unarmed: the Christmas Truce of 1914
Memories of the Vale: a lost way of life before the railways came to the countryside
More than three men in a boat: the rise and fall of pleasure boating on the Thames
Morris dancing [tailored to area where appropriate]
Morris’s motopolis: the motor works and the transformation of Oxford
My Gulf War (Operation Granby): a look at life in HQ British Forces Middle East 1990/91
Nineteenth-century women travellers and explorers
No corsets! The aesthetic and rational dress movements come to Oxford
Nobody’s Heroes: 8th East Lancs at War, 1914-18
Northamptonshire and its hearth taxes
Not just Napoleon and Jane Austen: lesser known weird and wonderful memories from 1815
Nuffield College’s “Island Site” in west Oxford
Olive Gibbs, local politician and peace campaigner
On Easter at Christmas: exploring the myth of Easter Island
On this day in Oxfordshire: a true, historical story for every day of the year
On two wheels: the fascinating story of the bicycle
Otmoor Riots in a wider context
Our boys 1914-1918: who were the fallen of one Oxfordshire valley?
Over the hills to glory: the story of the Ascott Martyrs
Oxford: 800 years of social struggle and radical scholarship (n.b. this is a guided walk, but it can be offered as a virtual tour, via zoom or other on-line platform)
Oxford Castle: 17th- and 18th-century crimes, escapes, and punishments
Oxford, city of writers and wordplay: puns, printing and personas
Oxford Civic Culture in the Early Modern Period: More than just Merry England
Oxford in the history of medicine
Oxford past and present: images from the Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) Project
Oxford’s 400-year-old Botanic Garden: notable keepers, visitors and events
Oxford’s historic waterways: the Oxford Canal, the Thames and the Cherwell
Oxford’s statues and the forgotten celebrated citizens they remember
Oxford Preservation Trust – a tour of our work
Oxford to Fairford Railway Branch Line (1861 to 1970)
Oxford town and gown: a literary and historical overview
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on the Somme, 1916
Oxfordshire at the Great Exhibition
Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and the wit and satire of Gilbert & Sullivan
Oxfordshire in the British Civil Wars, 1642-51
Oxfordshire in the Second World War
Oxfordshire and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39
Oxfordshire on the Home Front, 1914-18
Oxfordshire on canvas: how artists have captured the local area and been influenced by it
Oxford(shire) waterways: a literary tour
Oxfordshire’s Medieval Gardens
Pagans and puritans: the story of May Morning in Oxford
Paradise lost and restored: 400 years of garden design in Oxfordshire
Parson’s Pleasure, Dame’s Delight: a history of bathing and swimming in Oxford’s rivers
Percy Manning, the man who collected Oxfordshire
Peripatetic poor in the eighteenth century
Place-names, landscape and settlement in the Banbury region
Poor Law in the eighteenth century: the crisis in the parishes
Port to port: a historical journey, the length and breadth of the Sharpness to Gloucester Canal
Portraits of two 18th-century gentlemen
Poverty, pestilence and public health in Victorian Britain
Power and personalities: politics in Victorian and Edwardian Oxford
Printed maps of Oxfordshire and of the adjoining counties: their history and development
‘Professors of Rowing’: the first Oxford-Cambridge boat races
Publicans and builders: the Capels of Cumnor and Boars Hill
Published sources for family and local history
Radley gentry, yeomen and land
Radley Church and the Civil War
Radley College: the history of the school, grounds and buildings
Radley Lakes: the history of the area
Radley: the thousand-year evolution of a manor
Radley timber framed buildings
RAF Brize Norton: over 80 years of flying operations
Ridge and furrow – what’s it all about?
River at war: why the Thames was such an important strategic feature in World War II
Remembrance after the Great War
Research at home using Oxfordshire libraries’ on-line resources
Roman invasions, occupation and colonisation of Britain
Rose Hill, Oxford: an area of surprising contrasts and great historical interest
Rout on the Riviera – Exercise Tiger – The Slapton Sands Disaster
Ruskin College: the ‘ups and downs’, a history of the college
Ruthless land speculators in early nineteenth-century Oxford: Crews Dudley and George Kimber
Saints and sinners: Victorian and Edwardian religion in Oxfordshire
Scandal in High Society Oxfordshire: selected tales of toffs in trouble
Sculls, skiffs and steamers: the history of Salter’s Steamers
Secret Gardens of Oxfordshire and the Birth of Modern Science
Seventeenth century village – who was in charge?
Sex, drink and death in the 17th century
Shakespeare in the North and the Stanley family of Knowsley Hall
Sharpness scuppered ships: the Sharpness Ship Graveyard
Shaw House: 400 years of history
Soldiers, saints and sinners: Oxfordshire characters from the British Civil War, 1642-46
Solomon’s Might: the Loss of Penlee Lifeboat
St Peter’s College, Oxford, and the Duncan Grant Collection
St Thomas the Martyr, a West Oxford parish
Stolen lives: individual tragedies of the Great War
Stories behind names on the Abingdon War Memorial
‘Taking the waters’: the waxing and waning of the English spa
Taylor’s Port of Taylor Fladgate, Yeatman of Oporto, and the history of port
Thames Path from the source near Cirencester towards Oxford
Thames Path from Oxford to Pangbourne
Thames Path from Pangbourne to Marlow
Thames Path from Marlow to Runnymede
Thames Path from Runnymede to Teddington
The Bankrupt Butcher and the Butcher who Disappeared: The First Occupants of Summerhill, Summertown
The coming of the railway to Oxford
The Great Stink! Engineers, sewerage systems and the Victorian battle against dirt
‘The Joneses of Jesus’ and Oxford’s other Welsh connections
The story of the Cotswolds: Wool, warfare, recession and return
The Two William Morrises of Oxfordshire
Thousands of miles in the Rob Roy canoe: the life and times of John MacGregor
Titanic Effort! – RMS Carpathia’s dash to save a stricken liner
Tom Carter of Marsh Baldon: the invisible collector
Transport in the Goring Gap: an Illustrated History
Travels with Auntie: my life at the BBC World Service
Trench Humour in the First World War
Tricks of the Trade: Spying in the First World War
University of Oxford Botanic Garden: the first 100 years
University of Oxford Botanic Garden: 400 years of gardening and botany
Unravelling the mysterious making of the Stonesfield Embroidery
Upper Thames Patrol: the World War II Home Guard Navy
Upper Thames Patrol: the waterborne Home Guard of the River Thames
US Ninth Air Force in the UK in World War II
Victorian and Edwardian development of East Oxford
Victorian and Edwardian industrial buildings of Oxford
Victorian and Edwardian leisure: the pursuit of pleasure
Victorian winter tea: its history and etiquette
Votes for women in Oxford (and/or Oxfordshire)
Voyages to the House of Diversion: Hanwell Castle and its Jacobean park
Warrior Women of the English Civil War, 1642-51
Watershed: Mahatma Gandhi and the First World War
Wartime children: the 1940s Home Front from a child’s point of view
Water gypsy: how a Thames fishergirl became a viscountess
West Challow Farmer’s Wife who Preached in Barbados – and why she matters to us now
West Country defences in World War II
Wharfs, wheelhouses and watermen: the history of Hobbs of Henley
What a Liberty! 500 years of memorable moments along Oxford’s outer boundaries
Where do MPs get their money from? A brief history of the corruption of parliament
Where are the boys? The first fateful day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916
William Castle: a notable Banbury eccentric and Morris Fool
Wilts & Berks Canal: past, present and future
Witches, Scolds and Mouldy Jades: Oxford’s Women’s Words on Trial
Women of the Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) Project
Women’s Institute: not just Jam and Jerusalem
Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) in World War II: the largest female voluntary organisation ever
World War I memorials: public schools in the Great War
World War II women’s fashion: dressing on the ration, from the 1930s to the end of the war
Wreckers’ tales: ship breakers of the Severn
Wrecks to relics: Purton’s Mulberry Blueprint
Yesterday’s runways: airfields of Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds
Yesterday’s runways: from World War II into the 21st century