Tis the season! Time to deck the halls, fill the mead cup, drain the barrel, and troll the ancient yuletide carol. Time also for a long overdue visit to Oxford’s Covered Market. For maximum impact make your approach via the Turl and Market Street. The air is marginally warmer inside than out, thanks to a scattering of electric ... CONTINUE READING
How many people today have heard of the Tirah Expedition? Or could even say where Tirah was/is? So much for remembrance … The answer is that Tirah is a mountain region at the North West Frontier of what was once British India, on the border of present day Pakistan and Afghanistan. And the expedition, which took place in ... CONTINUE READING
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 abolition of the last remaining safeguards against local authorities wishing to dispose of ... CONTINUE READING
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 READING
As you wind across the boardwalk through the shoulder-high reeds, with a soft grey cygnet quietly lapping beside you, you might well be forgiven for thinking you are in some enchanted rainforest. It is hard to imagine that this land was once a rubbish site, covered with metal, splinters of stone and brick, plastic bags, decomposing waste, even ... CONTINUE READING
We had such a powerful response to our recent Westgate Story that we were prompted to dig back further into the Morris Oxford archives. Once the dust had settled, we came across the piece below. Alas – or perhaps mercifully – there were no accompanying photographs, so we've added some present-day images of similar artistic merit ... This is what ... CONTINUE READING
Residents of the quiet, well ordered and perfectly sensible thoroughfare that is New High Street, Headington, might have been surprised as they pulled back their bedroom curtains on the morning of 9 August 1986. Protruding out of the roof of Number 2, was the tail-fin of a giant shark. Twenty-five feet long and weighing 200 kilos, the fibreglass ... CONTINUE READING
