History of Telephones in Headington
In 1928 Oxford extended its boundaries eastwards, and the three rural villages of Headington were swiftly brought up to city standards and provided with electricity and telephone lines.
Headington’s first telephone exchange was at the top of Lime Walk, where the postal sorting office is now. There was no need for a large exchange, as in 1928 only four businesses in Headington were on the telephone, namely:
- City Motor Co., 152 London Road (beside Stile Road on the site now occupied by the Co-op ), tel. Headington 2231 and 2232;
- Cooper & Boffin, bakers & confectioners, 70 London Road (now the Mirabai), tel. Headington 1386;
- Miss Dorothy W. Crook, and Miss Constance E. Ridout, physicians & surgeons, 74 London Road (now the right-hand half of the Mount Pleasant Hotel), tel. Headington 6976;
- A. E. Vallis & Sons, the timber & builder’s merchants in Windmill Road (now Blanchford’s), tel. Headington 6957.
According to Kelly’s Directory, no private customer in Headington had a telephone in 1928.
The expansion of the telephone system in Headington was very slow, and it was not until the 1950s that Headington numbers had to change from four to five figures (achieved by adding a “6” at the beginning). Forty years later, the numbers were given a sixth digit, a “7” in front of that “6”.
In the 1950s Headington’s telephone exchange moved into a new purpose-built building in the huge garden of Sandfield Cottage in London Road. It is still there, sandwiched between the new Sainsbury’s Local shop and the Manor Hospital.
Although Headington may have been one of the last areas of Oxford to gain access to post office telephones, it was the first to acquire cable telephones in the 1990s, when ComTel (now taken over by ntl) set up its operation for the south central area in Risinghurst. The early Headington ntl customers have six numbers beginning with 45.