The named work that fills our small year.
We are a charity of one purpose and six programmes. Each is small, each is named, each has a trustee responsible for it, and each is set out in detail below. Together they describe the whole of the work we do — and the whole of what your gifts pay for.
01 · The Almshouses
Beneficiaries: twelve older residents · Geography: the former Oswestry Borough · Supported by: the consolidated Eure and Smale endowment, the Almshouse Association, and St Oswald's Parish Church.
The Almshouses are the trust itself. Six dwellings sit at Eure's Row (numbered 1 to 6, with a small courtyard onto Beatrice Street); four at Smale's Cottages stand a short walk away across the parish boundary. All ten are Grade II listed; the slates are Welsh, the bricks are local, and the doorways are still painted the “Eure blue” specified in the 1859 trustees' minute-book.
Residents are appointed by the trustees, on the recommendation of a small panel that meets after each vacancy. We look for evidence of need, evidence of connection to the area, and evidence that the applicant will be at home in a small, quiet community. The minimum age at appointment is 60; the average age at appointment in the past decade has been 74. The longest serving resident has been with us since 2008.
A weekly maintenance allowance — payable by each resident according to their means, on a sliding scale set out in the 1979 Scheme — covers the running costs of the cottage. Where a resident cannot meet the full allowance, the trustees waive part or all of it. This is not advertised; we mention it here because we would rather you knew it than not.
02 · The Repair Fund
Beneficiaries: the listed almshouse buildings · Geography: Beatrice Street and Cross Street · Supported by: the Almshouse Association, Historic England (consultative), and the donors of the present roof appeal.
The Repair Fund holds a separate cost-centre within the trust's accounts. It funds the routine quinquennial inspection by our buildings trustee, the lime-pointing of the south wall, replacement window-frames in oak (we have a long-standing arrangement with a Llanymynech yard), and chimney work. The present appeal — re-slating the south side of Eure's Row, numbers 1 to 6 — stands at £27,400 of a £45,000 target.
We try to match materials. The first batch of Welsh slate we have ordered for the roof appeal comes from Penrhyn, where the original 1748 slates were quarried. Lime mortar is mixed in the courtyard, in small batches, with hot lime from Buxton. We are not purist about this — we will use modern materials where they are quietly better — but where the listed character matters, we keep faith with the building.
03 · Hearth & Hand
Beneficiaries: any almshouse resident who chooses to take part · Geography: Oswestry, Gobowen, Trefonen, Treflach, Whittington, Llanymynech · Supported by: the Almshouse Association's befriending guidance and Age UK Shropshire Telford & Wrekin.
Hearth & Hand began in 2014 when a trustee proposed a small befriending scheme for those of our residents who wished it. By the end of that first year, eight neighbours had signed up; today there are fourteen befrienders, paired one-to-one with residents who have asked to be visited. Pairings are reviewed annually, and a resident may end a pairing at any time without explanation.
A befriender visits at least once a fortnight, from October to May. The hour is fixed by the resident. We ask befrienders to do nothing more than to be present: to sit, to listen, to share a pot of tea. Some come with the parish newspaper; some bring stewed fruit from their garden; one brings her knitting. There are no targets. There are no forms.
04 · The Garden at Eure's Row
Beneficiaries: all almshouse residents, and the volunteer gardeners · Geography: the walled garden behind Eure's Row, Beatrice Street · Supported by: the volunteer gardeners themselves and a small annual contribution from a Treflach plant nursery.
The walled garden behind Eure's Row has been worked since at least 1881, when the Oswestry & Border Counties Almanack first listed “a gardener” attached to the foundation. Six volunteers tend it today. There is an apple step against the south wall, a small herb patch by the back door of No. 4, a long flower border that runs the length of the west wall, and a compost heap that Thomas, our most senior gardener, has been turning since 2017.
The garden is not landscaped; it is gardened. We do not employ a designer. We follow the seasons, plant what does well, and accept that some years the cold frame yields nothing and other years it yields more lettuces than the residents can eat. We hold an annual plant sale on Spring Open Doors, the proceeds of which support the Repair Fund.
05 · The Winter Coal Allowance
Beneficiaries: all twelve almshouse residents · Geography: the ten cottages · Supported by: the trustees' annual budget; an Oswestry coal merchant who delivers at near-cost.
The Winter Coal Allowance is one of the oldest features of the trust. Mary Smale's original 1748 bequest specified that the residents of her four cottages should receive “fyve hundredweight of good coal at Michaelmas, and as much agayne at Christmas, and the like at Candlemas, that they fail not for warmth”. The wording in the 1979 Scheme is gentler, but the substance is the same: three coal deliveries between Michaelmas and Lady Day, at our cost.
Two of the cottages have since switched to gas central heating; the allowance for those residents is paid as a heating supplement directly to their utility account. The remaining eight cottages keep open fires or solid-fuel ranges. The coal merchant — a local firm in business since 1947 — delivers in unmarked sacks; we ask him to come early in the morning so as not to disturb anybody who has had a hard night.
06 · The Trustees' Library
Beneficiaries: any resident who wishes to read · Geography: the side room at St Oswald's Parish Church, and each resident's front room · Supported by: donations of books from the Oswestry Bookshop, the Library at Park Hall, and individual readers from across the Vale.
The Trustees' Library is a small circulating library, kept in a single tall bookcase in the side room of St Oswald's. There are perhaps three hundred volumes — paperback fiction, large-print editions, some history, some poetry, some gardening, a shelf of Welsh and Welsh-translation. Books are donated; we do not buy them. We do, however, occasionally subscribe to a magazine on a resident's behalf.
On the last Tuesday of each month, our library walker (a volunteer who rotates each year) takes a tote bag of books round each almshouse, swaps last month's reading for this month's, and writes a small list of what has been borrowed in the front-leaf of the trust's borrowing book. The borrowing book has run since 1986 and is itself, by now, a quiet history of the residents.
How the programmes relate to one another
All six programmes are in service of the first one. The Repair Fund keeps the houses standing. The Coal Allowance keeps them warm. The Garden gives the residents somewhere to step outside and breathe. Hearth & Hand and the Library offer companionship and reading without intruding. None of them is fundraised separately; donors give to the charity, and the trustees allocate by quarter according to the year's needs.
If you would like to support a particular programme, we will respect that. Please note it in the message field on the donation page, or write to us at Beatrice Street.