Listed Buildings of Marston: Halford House, 8 Boults Lane
Photographed on 4 March 2006
Halford House is Grade II listed (ref. 1485/131). This house was converted from two cottages attached to Boult’s Arm in about 1680. It is built of limestone rubble, with a concrete plain-tile roof and brick gable stacks.
There is a stream called Hal or Al which flows from the present Court Place Farm allotments on on past St Nicholas’s School to join the Cherwell opposite Lady Margaret Hall, and to get to Boults Farm at the end of Boults Lane it was necessary to cross the Hal by a ford: hence the name of this house.
Former occupants:
- 1935, 1937: John Matthews
- Mid-1950s: Mrs Doreen West
- 1958–1979: Owned by John Willoughby Tarleton Allen (1904–1979), Colonial educationist and Swahili scholar, but let out to tenants in the early years, e.g. D.L. West (1958), Henry A. Osmaston (1964)
