History makers
Over the last few years, the volunteers and staff at Oasis Community Centre in Worksop have gained awards in many different areas and forged ahead with new initiatives. They gained the ‘Centre for Social Justice’ Award two years ago and before that won ‘Green Social Prescribing’ awards for two years running for their ‘Gardening for Life’ programme.
A few years ago, the Oasis crew completed a history project with funding from the Heritage Lottery on the History of the Kilton estate area and surrounding area. Pastor Steve, who manages the Oasis Centre, said: “When I approached the Heritage lottery I thought it was a big ask as Kilton isn’t exactly Stratford on Avon or some famous place but I thought that actually the people of Kilton are just as important as anyone else and the history of the area is just as important to preserve than anywhere else. So I asked for some funding and amazingly got it!”
This saw local people coming together and sharing memories of when Kilton was farmland, a plantation of sorts and had a wooded area which was renowned for cuckoos which are sadly no longer heard there. Oasis produced a magazine and a children’s comic about the area.
Liquorice gardens
Oasis went on to do a second history project all about the famous Liquorice Gardens of Worksop, of which there were eight at one time. Unbeknown to many people, even those who eat and drink in the ‘Liquorice Gardens’ pub, liquorice was a heritage crop grown prolifically in Worksop.
Going back hundreds of years before sugarcane and sugar beat was brought to the UK, one of the only sweeteners apart from honey was liquorice. It was also used medicinally. Not native to this country, it was brought over many hundreds of years ago and Worksop was one of three places which became centres for liquorice production.
Liquorice is a root crop which grows six to nine feet under the ground. Worksop liquorice root was sold around the country and beyond and the town was famous for this unusual plant.
Oasis wrote and published a book on the history of liquorice and created their own little liquorice garden, the first in Worksop for 100 years. They also published a children’s pack and have done special children’s programmes entitled ‘Allsorts’.
When BBC Gardener’s World filmed at Oasis Gardens the presenters had never seen liquorice growing before, and took some seedlings away themselves. Oasis’ research uncovered that the Pilgrims who left Worksop for life in the New World of America must have taken liquorice with them, as it appears to have been grown in the decades following in America.
Pilgrim perspectives
This connection with liquorice, pilgrims and history led the Oasis team to think of a new history project for which again they got funding. Members of Oasis have been busy over the last year with this latest history project on the Pilgrims of Bassetlaw.
Their interest was not just about the historical facts that have been recorded in other books and materials, but on what it was that really motivated these ancestors of ours who were living in places like Worksop, Scrooby, Babworth, Ranskill and Austerfield to give up family and friends, life and work, homes and houses and dare to take a 16-week dangerous crossing over the sea to America
It was a perilous adventure in which people lost their lives. This project has been looking at the reasons and the heart-wrenching decisions of the Pilgrims to uproot their lives, move to a wilderness on the other side of the world with barely more than their memories and few possessions.
The Oasis team is writing a book and some items for children and young people to bring this sometimes-overlooked but important local and world history to life.
If anyone is interested in knowing more, or in the books and materials created from any of these projects, contact Steve at Oasis on 07795 194957 or Oasiscentre-steve@outlook.com or catch up with all the activities at Oasis at www.oasiscommunitycentre.org.