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Headington history: Listed Buildings/Structures

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Bridge over Headington Hill


Headington Hill Hall bridge

Bridge over Headington Hill

List entry for bridge over Headington Hill: 1116380

This elegant footbridge dating from 1877 spans Headington Hill and joins the two parts of the Morrell estate attached to Headington Hill Hall. It was much admired and at the beginning of the twentieth century it was the subject of about ten different postcards such as this one on the left, looking down the hill.

Its architect was William Wilkinson, who also designed the Randolph Hotel and much of north Oxford. In Headington he also designed Headington Workhouse and the Wingfield Convalescent Home (both now demolished). It was built by George Castle of Oxford, and restored by Oxford Architects in the 1980s.

Today the bridge is used by Oxford Brookes students as a short-cut between the Headington Hill Hall and main Gipsy Lane campuses.

From 1864 to 1876 the Morrell Trustees looked after Headington Hill Hall for the owner, Emily Alicia Morrell, who had not come of age. During that period, the Trustees of Tyrrell Knapp, who had lived in The Rise on the corner of Cheney Lane, put that house up for sale along with all the land surrounding it for the possible erection of mansions and villa residences. The following advertisement appeared in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 18 September 1875

18 September 1875: Land for sale

The Morrell Trustees intervened and purchased both for £26,000 in 1876 to prevent this development, which they thought was too near Headington Hill Hall. This purchase effectively doubled the size of the Morrell estate. Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 12 October 1878 (p. 8c) reported that “A handsome bridge now connects the old portion of the estate with that purchased from the Knapp family, and this is also the work of Mr. G. Castle.”

In 1874 Emily Alicia Morrell had married her cousin, George Herbert Morrell, and in 1876 she came of age. In 1877 G. H, Morrell (as he is usually described) linked Headington Hill Hall to its fruit and vegetable garden on the other side of the main road by this bridge, which was designed for both foot and carriage passengers.

This farmland on the south side of the bridge came under threat a second time in the 1920s, when the city council hoped to use it for housing. But the Morrell Trustees would only release a strip of land to the south, resulting in a brand new road flanked by superior council houses: the appropriately named Morrell Avenue. Then in 1932 – as the stone at the foot of Headington Hill with lettering by Eric Gill records – the Morrell Trustees sold the remaining 60 acres of farmland to the Oxfordshire Preservation Trust, with the stipulation that no building should ever be erected on it. In 1959 the land was handed over to the City Council: the cows moved out, and the Morrells’ South Park now belongs to the people of Oxford.

See also:

  • Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 12 October 1878, p. 8c

© Stephanie Jenkins

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