Here are Oxford’s oldest post box (a Victorian Penfold pillar box dating from 1866/7 at Park Town) and its newest one (a Charles III pedestal box of 2025 at the Roundway in Headington

Jane Austen went to school for a short time in Oxford and her father and brothers studied at St John’s College, which is putting on a free exhibition from Wed 3 to Mon 8 December 2025, 10am to 5pm daily, on “The Austens at Oxford” www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/eve...

The top of the Norman tower at St Michael-at-the Northgate Church with its new handrail balustrade (planning permission 24/01668/FUL), and the the whole church in 1834, when the tower still had its battlements

James Stevens Curl, who completed his architectural qualifications at the Oxford School of Architecture and whose books included “The Erosion of Oxford”, died on 5 November 2025, aged 88. Here is his obituary in The Times: archive.ph/tuW5r

War memorials in Oxford (not all, but too many): www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/war/

Some Oxford weather vanes: (1) Hertford College, with date of 1924 when they took over the octagonal chapel; (2) Indian Institute, with elephant; (3) Lloyds Bank, with sailing ship (continued ...)

Thirteen fine old houses were demolished to make way for the New Bodleian Library, and another two had their foundations damaged in the demolition process and were rebuilt as the present right-hand side of Blackwell’s. Here is a photograph taken from the Sheldonian Theatre showing some of them

At matches held in the two cockpits in Holywell, the poor birds represented their counties. This advertisement is from the Gloucester Journal of 30 September 1754. There is more information on the two Holywell cockpits here: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/holywell/mis...

There are vacant buildings all over Oxford following the move of seven faculties and two institutes to the Schwarzman Centre. One of these is 34 St Giles’ Street, where a blue plaque remembers the builders Daniel Evans and Joshua Symm: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/stgiles/tour...

Today (19 October) is St Frideswide’s Day: she is the patron saint of the University, the City, and the Diocese of Oxford. Here is a post from Morris Oxford to celebrate her day: morrisoxford.co.uk/oxfem/

Here is the new sculpture of Dervorguilla of Galloway outside Balliol College's new buildings in St Cross Road. She was the wife of Sir John de Balliol and both played a large part in the foundation of the college. There is more information on her Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dervorg...

There’s an article here from @oxfordclarion.bsky.social about the exciting discovery of Saxon walls at Speedwell House: oxfordclarion.uk/have-we-foun...

Here are the four female statues over the entrance to the Taylorian that were sculpted by William Grinsell Nicholl in 1846. They represent Italian, French, German, and Spanish.

“Well preserved” walls potentially dating back to Saxon times have been discovered in excavations at Speedwell House, the building just off St Aldates which is proposed as Oxfordshire County Council’s new HQ. As first reported by the Clarion, relocation plans are currently on hold after the find.

Another piece of Oxford’s heritage is for sale: offers in excess of £850,000 are invited for the Grade II listed Cowley Road Methodist Church that was designed by Stephen Salter and built by Kingerlee in 1903: s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/agents-socie...

Does anyone know what this "potentially significant archaeological find" at Speedwell House is? It could leave the county council that was planning to there homeless

This small plaque in the pavement outside the Saïd Business School remembers Oxford’s other railway station, built in 1851 (one year before the GWR one on the Botley Road). It was demolished to make way for the business school and rebuilt at Quainton in 2000 www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

New page with more information on Oxford's Black Assizes here: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

Oxfordshire’s Old County Hall in New Road that houses the council chamber and coroner’s court has been sold (along with the adjacent modern block of offices) to L & G, who plan to turn the site into a hotel www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The City Church at Carfax was demolished in 1896 except for its medieval tower, but its bells still ring out. On Monday 8 September 2025 at 12 noon they rang to mark the third anniversary of the accession of King Charles III

Today is the Monday following the first Sunday after St Giles’ Day (1 September), so it must be St Giles’ Fair: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/stgiles/fair/

Nos. 32 and 33/33A St Giles’ have belonged to Blackfriars since 2018 but the ground-floor shops remain vacant. Here is a brief history of the occupants of these three old shops (which were combined to form a bank in 1977): www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/stgiles/tour...

There is an Archaeology Open Day at Hertford College on Saturday 6 September 2025, 10.30am–3.30pm, with a chance to look around the college chapel too: www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/event/archae...

The Warneford Asylum/Hospital has been in Headington since 1826, but after 200 years its old buildings are likely to become a college of the University of Oxford. Here is its brief history, with details of the current planning application at the end www.headington.org.uk/history/list...

For those who don’t know, the 1876 Street Plan of Oxford is incredibly detailed (but sadly does not include later suburbs). Click on the square you are interested in, and then on OK and Full Screen to see the layout of streets and houses www.oxfordshirehistory.org.uk/public/maps/...

This chronogram is over the entrance to St Edmund Hall in Queen’s Lane. Many people may not know what the year signifies even after deciphering this one, as it does not mark the college's foundation, so here is the solution: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

The builders who have obscured the street sign here have meticulously retained the historic hyphen in QUEENS-LANE. This is one of fifteen surviving street signs in Oxford where the hyphen shows that they date from the mid-nineteenth century: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/xtra...

The 18th-century Radcliffe Observatory will be restored with a £3m gift from American businessman Stephen Schwarzman. The observatory is now part of Green Templeton College on Woodstock Road and faces the humanities centre named after Schwarzman, opening next month. www.gtc.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Blackwell's bookshop has opened its new 'Oxford shop' at 53 Broad Street. The music department remains accessible inside, down the stairs to the Norrington Room. The Oxford shop brings together books about the city and the university as well as by local authors.

The Boundary Brook runs all the way from Headington down to the River Thames, but much of it is now culverted underground. From 1889 to 1929 this brook marked the boundary between the City of Oxford and the three villages of Headington, Cowley, and Iffley www.headington.org.uk/history/misc...

“The Netty” in St Giles’ offers two suites, each with its own flight of steps, offering “a one-of-a-kind boutique stay in central Oxford, set within beautifully restored Victorian public toilets”. Railings by William Lucy thenetty.co.uk

Between 1384 and 1858 many Oxford wills were proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and you can search for them here and download the original wills free if you sign in to your National Archives account (easy to create if you don’t have one) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-yo...

Yesterday two new history information boards were installed on the bridge built in St Ebbe's in 1927 to enable employees at the new part of the gas works on the south side of the river to walk to work. Here are photographs of the bridge in 1945 with two gasometers visible and of the two boards

Here is a brief history of William Baker House, built in 1915 as show-rooms for a cabinet-making business, recently vacated by Waterstone's, and now destined to be a visitor attraction celebrating Harry Potter: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/broad/buildi...

Here are diamond-shaped tiles in the floor of @universitychurch.bsky.social remembering Richard Bradgate and his wife Elizabeth (both of whom were described by Thomas Hearne as “proud & empty of sense”) and their infant son. More about them here: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/doctors/apot...

Barclays Bank rebuilding 53 Cornmarket Street next to the Clarendon Hotel in 1922 in the same style as No. 54 to the south (which had been built as the Shakespeare Hotel in 1865).

Ruskin School of Art in the High Street: The Design & Access Statement listed under the Documents tab for planning application 25/01540/LBC includes the Heritage Statement and gives an excellent history of the building with some unusual photographs: public.oxford.gov.uk/online-appli...

This brass on a pillar of Holywell Church shows Elizabeth Franklin, wife of the landlord of the King’s Arms, in bed with her swaddled newborn baby: both died on 31 July 1622. Also on the bed are her three earlier babies wrapped in shrouds www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/burials/earl...

In July 1625 Parliament was adjourned away from a plague-ridden London. In this article Dr Paul Hunneyball explored the crisis facing Charles I that prolonged Parliament's deliberations, necessitating a safer meeting place at Oxford University: historyofparliament.com/2022/04/21/p...

Have you seen this stone bench dedicated to Annie Rogers, Oxford’s first female don, in the churchyard to the north of St Mary-the-Virgin Church? The Latin inscription is transcribed and translated here: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

This fire insurance plaque high up on the south side of the Clarendon Building in Oxford relates to the Sun Fire Office Policy No. 16839, which dates from soon after the building was opened in 1715. See more insurance plaques in the city here: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

There’s another chronogram for the year in the large letters of the Latin inscription on the Rhodes Building in the High Street (L + M + V + I + I + C + I + C + C + I + L + I + I + D = 1911)

Paul Waterhouse who designed the former Dyson Perrins Laboratory in South Park Road modestly had “O si melius” [O, if only it were better] inscribed on the building. See this page for an explanation of the fiendish chronogram contained in that inscription: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

The reason for the yearly closure of Mesopotamia Walk through the University Parks is explained here in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 12 January 1867

Woolworth’s is remembered by this ornate letter W under the sign for Clarendon House in Cornmarket, with the date 1957 hiding within the top curves of the letter W. The initials WHM probably stand for William Harvey Moore, but who is SPP?

This photograph shows the new Life and Mind building on the corner on St Cross and South Parks Road. Google Streetview is becoming useful at recording Oxford's history: here is the Tinbergen Building (Experimental Psychology & Zoology) on Google Streetview in 2017: maps.app.goo.gl/1WZpH66pypFj...

On this day (30 June) in 1860, the Great Debate between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution took place in the University Museum: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

On this day (27 June) in 1814, peace was proclaimed in the City of Oxford following the signing of the Treaty of Paris. This Peace Stone can be seen on the wall of the surviving tower of St Martin’s Church at Carfax: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/insc...

This report in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 20 June 1801 states that the Encaenia that year had to be held in the Radcliffe Camera as the Sheldonian Theatre was being repaired.

The *Oxfordshire* Light Infantry South African (Boer) War Memorial that used to stand on the site of the present Plain roundabout now resides in what was Berkshire at the time it was erected: www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/war/boer_war/