Mrs Thatcher was not a friend of allotments, despite (or perhaps because of) being a grocer’s daughter from the famously potato-growing county of Lincolnshire. In July 1980 her government attempted to repeal Section 8 of the 1925 Act. Had she succeeded it would have meant … Continue readingA Little More Allotment
The Right Worshipful Lord Mayor of Oxford, Mrs E F M Standingford, couldn’t quite believe her eyes as she stepped decorously through the gates of Osney, St Thomas and New Botley allotments, one warm August afternoon in 1986. Patiently waiting for her on the other side was Mr Trevor Green, and beside him a pumpkin of gargantuan proportions … Continue readingAllotments
In his article on ‘The Expansion of Towns – Planned and Unplanned’ [Journal of the Town Planning Institute, 43 (1957), p.106] D.W. Riley identifies certain towns as possessing ‘an efficiency, culture, and charm which are the gradually matured expression of generations of settled living’ … Continue readingPark Town Arch
Far at the end of the long sweep of St Giles, dark and pointedly brooding (some say it resembles the needling spire of a subterranean church) lurks the Martyrs’ Memorial, one of Oxford’s best-known monuments. It is a grim reminder of the often bloody history … Continue readingMartyrs’ Cross