Dr Mike Osborne's interest in fortifications began with childhood visits to castles and forts. It has developed over the years to include all aspects of the subject from Iron Age hillforts to Cold War bunkers. He was a volunteer-coordinator for the 'Defence of Britain Project', recording twentieth-century military structures. After a thirty-year career in education he took early retirement to write, producing twenty-six books to date on topics ranging from Civil War sieges and fortifications to the Volunteer Training Corps. His best- selling 'Defending Britain' led to a series of county surveys of defences including five titles for Fonthill and the award-winning 'Defending Cambridgeshire'.
Description
Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1 Fortifications in Oxfordshire Prior to the Norman Conquest; 2 Oxfordshire in the Middle Ages, 1050-1500; 3 Oxfordshire in Tudor, Stuart, and Georgian Times, 1500-1840; 4 Victorian and Edwardian Oxfordshire, 1840-1914; 5 Oxfordshire in the First World War, 1914-18; 6 Oxfordshire during the Interwar Years, 1919-39; 7 Oxfordshire during the Second World War, 1939-45; 8 The Cold War and Beyond, 1945-2020; Appendix I: Prehistoric Forts; Appendix II: Castles, Moated Sites, and Strong Houses; Appendix III: Licences to Crenellate; Appendix IV: Airfields and Other Aviation-Related Sites; Appendix V: Drill Halls, TA, and Army Reserve Centres; Appendix VI: Barracks, Camps, and Depots; Appendix VII: Locations of Volunteer Units; Appendix VIII: Second World War Anti-Invasion Defences; Appendix IX: Home Guard Units in Oxfordshire; Appendix X: Air Defence in the Second World War and the Cold War; Appendix XI: Munitions and Logistics; Appendix XII: Military and Auxiliary Hospitals; Appendix XIII: POW Camps; Bibliography; Index.