There were several industrial premises in South Oxford which employed local people as well as those from outside the area. These included Salter's Steamers, the St Ebbe's gasworks and the city waterworks at Lake Street. As well as Salter's, there were other boat-builders including George Harris & Son, established in the 1880s. Their offices were in what had been the Folly Bridge toll house and their oar and scull works were at 2 Jubilee Terrace. The firm also sold secondhand boats and equipment, housed and varnished boats, and hired out punts from Folly Bridge, as shown in this advertisement of 1928.
There were several wharves along both banks of the river, between Cobden Crescent and the gasworks. On the southern side was Basson’s Baltic Timber Wharf which was run by the timber merchant Tom Basson (1861-1930). Scandinavian timber (mostly pine) was brought here by boat from the London docks: this was a period when many new houses were being built locally and there was a great demand for timber for joists, floors, doors, window frames and so on. Basson also had a yard on a riverside site near the northern end of Marlborough Road which is now occupied by Pembroke College’s Sir Geoffrey Arthur Building and a steam-driven saw mill and joinery on St Aldates.
On the night of 20 November 1913 Basson's timber yard suffered a dramatic fire, believed to have been started by the suffragettes, in which over 1,000 tons of wood were destroyed.
Basson's Wharf is now the site of the Baltic Wharf housing development.
- Read about Tom Basson on Stephanie Jenkins's Oxford History website.
On the corner of Cobden Crescent and Buckingham Street, overlooking the river, was North's Mineral Works, established in 1896. The proprietor was WJI North, whose family had been connected with the trade for three generations. North's brewed 'Non-alcoholic Hop Bitter Beer & Stout, Pure Home Brewed Ginger Beer, Non-Alcoholic Wines, Cordials, Fruit Syrup and Mineral Water.' Here is a billhead with a drawing of the factory and a long list of North's products. The demand for non-alcoholic beverages was encouraged by the growing Temperance movement, and mineral water manufacturers, in particular, were surprisingly common in Oxford. North's factory was reported as being 'the most complete and modernly equipped of its kind in the city, or for many miles round. The building is of solid two-storeyed construction, and is a striking feature on the 'Up the River' side of Folly Bridge. It has an inclined concrete floor, and the drainage and sanitary arrangements may be regarded as the most perfect of their kind. The factory is supplied with a steam plant of the most recent pattern, capable of output of over 1,000 dozens of bottles per day of mineral waters.' [Views and Reviews: Oxford, WT Pike & Co, 1897]. In the 1960s the building was used as a Coca Cola factory. It was demolished in 1970 and replaced with a block of flats. Here is a picture of a North's ginger beer bottle, taken by local resident Anne Lyons, in front of the flats.
Nearby, furniture makers The Oxford Cabinet Co had their premises at 40a Marlborough Road in the 1930s. The building has since been demolished and flats built on the site, around what was the company's yard.
South Oxford's other main industrial site was the Varsity Works on Wytham Street. The works were built as a glove factory but were requisitioned during the Second World War to produce electrical parts for military vehicles operated by the Goodrich Company. Later the building was used for manufacturing ice cream by the Haines family (see below) before becoming H&E Engineering, a heating and electrical contractor. The works were demolished in 1993 and flats built on the site, which is now called Varsity Place.
- For more photos and memories of the Varsity Works see Carole Newbigging, The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 2, pp.32-34 (Robert Boyd Publications, 1999).
As well as the industries described above, there were lots of smaller businesses and shops in Grandpont, New Hinksey and Cold Harbour. Miss Brenda Horwood, who lived on Marlborough Road from the age of six until her death in 2014 at 92, remembers there being 16 shops in Grandpont when she was a child. The Grandpont Steam Laundry was at 42 Marlborough Road. There was a general shop and Post Office at 66 Marlborough Road; from the 1930s until at least the late 1950s it was run by Cyril Taylor. At no. 120 was the premises of Frederick Gibbs, wholesale confectioner, who also had branches at 104 Cowley Road, 45 St Ebbe's, 87 St Aldates, 57 St Giles, and in the Covered Market. The building was known as the Old Toffee Factory until its conversion into flats in 2004. At 186 Marlborough Road was JA Hancox's Handy Stores. See more photos and read a description of the shop by Joe Hancox's grandson Keith Palmer. The shop later became Bowell's the grocer's. There was another general shop at 208 Marlborough Road.
On the eastern side of Marlborough Road, just north of St Matthew's church, Charlie Crapper had a grocer’s shop and coal merchant’s yard. Next to the shop (at 59 Western Road) he had the Grandpont Bakery. Local people would buy dough from the bakery, take it home to knead into a loaf, or to add fruit for a lardy cake, and then take it back in a tin to be baked in the bakery's ovens. When Charlie Crapper died in 1937 the bakery was taken over by a former employee, Mr Backs, and his brother, and they ran a grocery there too. In 1948 part of the premises was leased by Arthur Carter who established the Grandpont Creamery, making and selling ice cream to locals, around the villages of Oxfordshire and at St Giles' Fair. Crapper’s yard was sold in 1992 to St Matthew's church for the building of St Matthew’s Parish Centre. 59 Western Road is now occupied by the Ethos Hotel.
In the 1960s, R Colk, house furnishers, had a shop at 2 Western Road, on the corner with Abingdon Road; and on the opposite corner, at 1 Western Road and 2-4 Abingdon Road, was the Parnell Group Services domestic appliances shop.
At Eastwyke Farm was the Alden's the butchers, and another branch of the family had Alden Motors, a second-hand car dealership and garage, at 60 Lake Street. A bit further along, nearer the Abingdon Road, was Morrison's Garage, pictures of which are here and here; there are modern houses on both sites now. There were several other shops and businesses on Lake Street; at no. 15, on the corner of Summerfield, was Mrs Darby's general shop. There used to be lots of advertisements on the side of the shop, one of which still survives.
After the First World War James Haines (1868-1950) lived with his wife and seven children at 69 Norreys Avenue. He had a horse and cart from which he sold fish and chips. In the late 1920s his son Bert bought a shop on the corner of Abingdon Road and Lincoln Road, and established a fish and chips shop there, which is still going strong as the Atlantic Fish Bar (previously the Mediterranean Fish Bar). Bert and his wife Lilian lived in the flat above. Two other sons, Bernard and Reg, made ice cream at Norreys Avenue.
After Reg's marriage the brothers continued to make ice cream at Reg's house in Wytham Street, and to sell this, together with fruit, from mobile vans. Reg and Bernard's father James, known to local children as ‘Granfer Haines’, rode around on a ‘stop-me-and-buy-one’ tricycle, selling ice cream. David Roberts, who lived on Wytham Street as a child during the Second World War, remembers that if he and his friends couldn’t afford an ice cream they would ask Mr Haines if he had any broken wafers to give them. If he hadn’t, they would say "Can you break some for us?" During the War, American soldiers would bring tinned fruit which the Haineses would add to the ice cream and then sell it back to them. Reg carried on selling from his mobile shop until he retired. Meanwhile Bert continued the family tradition of making ice cream at the rear of the chip shop, later moving to the Varsity Works on Wytham Street (see above). The brothers' sister Sadie married Arthur Carter and he worked with Bert making ice cream. In the late 1940s Arthur rented a property next to St Matthew's church - the Grandpont Creamery (see above) - and continued making ice cream from there. Much later, this Haines ice cream sign was found by the new owners when they moved into 87 Sunningwell Road.
There were numerous shops and businesses on the Abingdon Road. At 216a (between Vicarage Road and Norreys Avenue) was Jacqueline ladies' hairdresser, run by Miss PJ Cogswell, and next door at 216 was Douglas Gordon's gentlemen's hairdresser. This building had earlier been a pub, the New Hinksey Inn. Nearby, at 222, was John Kenny's secondhand furniture shop, and next door at 224 was E & KM Hatton's newsagent, stationer and ironmonger's. At 258 (on the corner of Sunningwell Road) was a grocer's and Post Office which was run from around 1909 (when the shop front was added) until the late 1950s by theTaylor family and, in the 1960s and '70s (as a general store and Post Office) by the Bayliss family. There is an attractive cartouche of Queen Victoria high up on the southern wall of the building incorporating the date that the house was built - 1897, Victoria's diamond jubilee. The Edward VIII [1901-1910] post box has been moved from near the shop door to the eastern wall; above it is a memorial to Princess Diana.
At 282 Abingdon Road, on the corner of Monmouth Road (where A&C Glass is now), was another grocer's. At 298 Abingdon Road, near the corner of Northampton Road, was Rainbows Removals and Storage Contractors, who had a fleet of lorries. In the 1950s this was Ledger's removals and storage business, and next door at 300 was the Co-op grocery store. Both these buildings are now occupied by SD Timmo Car Sales. On the opposite corner at 302-314 was GR Hartwell Ltd's South Oxford Garage, where National Tyres Autocare is now. At 328-330 Abingdon Road, on the corner of Oswestry Road (where more recently there was a Londis store) was yet another grocer's, Brookes & Belcher. Next door at 332 was Hartwell's agricultural engineers, and at 334-336 was Albert Lynch's grocer's shop (now the fishing tackle shop Top Tackle.) Further along, on the other side of the road and next to the Fox and Hounds pub, was the Cold Arbour filling station; there are pictures of it in 1958 here and here. There was a petrol station on this site until the 2010s; it's now a car wash.
Further along the Abingdon Road, where it bends around to the west, was the Redbridge Garage, which was where Go Outdoors is now. The garage repaired vehicles and sold petrol, and traded from the 1920s until 1970. There are pictures of it in 1949 here and here and in 1956 here and here. In the early 1970s the site was bought by George Clare, who transformed the former garage buildings into a camping supermarket, Touchwoods (named after the bungalow in Harwell from which he had previously run a mail-order camping equipment business). In 1980-1 the waste ground at the back of the shop was developed as a touring caravan park. Opposite this site is a now derelict shop with a large front window, built in the 1930s or 1940s by butcher John Revell (who lived on the Abingdon Road and whose family had run the Farrier's Arms pub). Later it was a cycle repair shop. Further along to the west, on the opposite side of the road, was a dairy run by farmer Andrew Turner who kept his cows in the field behind the Red Bridge Garage. He and his wife lived in the adjacent Paisley House, which was made of paper. Here Don Bennett recalls Mr Turner and his dairy business. The dairy is still there, now trading as Milk & More.
Read about the history of Oxford shops and shopping in:
- Malcolm Graham The Suburbs of Victorian Oxford: Growth in a Pre-Industrial City 'Shopping' pp.462-472 (DPhil dissertation, University of Leicester, 1985).
- Alan Crossley, Christopher Day & J Cooper, Shopping in Oxford: A Brief History (Oxford Preservation Trust Occasional Paper No. 4, 1983).
- Michael Turner & David Vaisey, Oxford Shops and Shopping: A Pictorial Survey from Victorian and Edwardian Times (Oxford, 1972).
- Hazel Bleay, Memories of Bygone Oxford Shops (Robert Boyd Publications, 2010).
The small white building with the steep gable was Alfred Revell's butcher's shop, and later a cycle repair shop, at the southern end of Abingdon Road. Opposite was Touchwoods Sports. The two buildings to the left were Red Cottage (sideways on to the road) and The Haven. Photograph taken in 1981, from Carole Newbigging, The Changing Faces of South Oxford and South Hinksey, Book 3 (Robert Boyd Publications, 2003). (Click on image to close)
An advertisement for North's Grandpont Works. Image courtesy of Simon Somerscales. (Click on image to close)
Sign found at 87 Sunningwell Road by the new owners. Image courtesy of Paul and Wendy Spray. (Click on image to close)