AFTER a “mammoth” 10-month battle to survive, Oxfordshire Drama Wardrobe said it has been saved after a final sell-off over the weekend.

The amateur dramatic costume rental service sold off some 1,200 unwanted costumes and accessories to raise £1,260.

The money will help it pay the bills in its new, smaller and more affordable warehouse at Steventon Storage Facility, where it still has 3,500 costumes for hire.

With more volunteers attracted by its fight for life in recent months, the wardrobe now plans to open another morning each week.

Honorary chairman Emma O’Driscoll said: “The sale went really well, we raised £1,260, and we have someone who has paid to come and collect everything left over.

“It is such a great weight off our shoulders, and we now feel really secure and we can continue long-term. There is no further threat to the wardrobe, people can rely on us.

“It has been a mammoth effort, but it has all paid off.”

She thanked the Oxford Mail for its help in publicising the sale with a little “fashion shoot” at the wardrobe last week.

At the weekend, punters flocked to the facility in Hanney Road, Steventon, and picked up fur coats, suits of armour, cricket whites, battle axes as well as bowler hats.

Now the collection has been “streamlined” to the best of the best.

Oxfordshire Drama Wardrobe, which has served amateur dramatic groups, schools and colleges since 1968, was forced to downsize because it had been unable to pay rent at its aircraft hangar home on the same site for several years and was spiralling into debt.

Renting costumes for £20 a time, last year ODW took in £6,000, its best year ever, but still not enough to pay the £890 monthly rent.

It originally put out an appeal with the Oxford Mail in September for a more affordable unit of equal size – about 3,000sq ft.

But despite being given a six-month extension on its lease to find a new place, the volunteers who run it could not find a place that fitted the bill.

In the end, the landlords at Steventon Storage Facility offered them a unit on the site that was half the size.

As well as saving money on rent in the smaller unit, the costume sale will also bring in useful extra cash to pay rent in future. Last Tuesday, the group was given a helping hand to move the costumes it is keeping to the new unit in the form of a 44-tonne lorry and two staff members from Asda in Didcot.

That was arranged by Ms O’Driscoll, who has a day job as Asda community champion.

For most of its life, the wardrobe has been run by 88-year-old Alex Graham, of Chiselhampton, South Oxfordshire.

She inherited the collection from her Quaker mentor, costume fanatic Beatrice Saxon Shell, of Henley, in the 1960s.

The wardrobe now opens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10am to noon.

Find out more at oxondramawardrobe.co.uk