The Ampleforth Arms pub at 53 Collinwood Road, Risinghurst was built by Ind Coope in 1939 when the Risinghurst estate was brand new.

The master builder who had previously worked on Ampleforth Abbey in York and Downside Abbey in Somerset built both this pub and the Somerset House in Marston, and the panelling and stone dressing around the windows of both is said to be the same as the monks' cloister at Ampleforth. This explains the name of the Ampleforth Arms, which becomes even more relevant as it happens to be situated on the corner of Downside Road.

Ronald Brind, who lived in Risinghurst and was a friend of Lewis's stepson Dougie, suggests that C. S. Lewis, who lived nearby at The Kilns, sometimes met J. R. R. Tolkien at this pub. He writes:

Clearly both Jack and his older brother Warnie enjoyed beer and/or cider because at the age of about twelve or thirteen years Dougie and I would be handed two empty brown glass cider bottles up at the Kilns and told to get them re-filled with their favourite tipple from the pub called the Ampleforth Arms on Risinghurst. Each bottle held a quart measure (two imperial pints). The Ampleforth Arms, or “the Amp” as it's known locally, can be seen at 53 Collinwood Road, Risinghurst. My wife and I were tenants of the Amp for a period of time but not, I might add, during the years that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and Clive Staples Lewis would sit in a back room of the pub over a pint of beer and where, according to one of the older members of the Parish, “they were often engrossed in conversation that was way above the heads of us locals.” Now that I can believe!

C. S. Lewis also visited this pub with his wife Joy. On 15 December 1958 he wrote in a letter to Sheldon Vanauken:

My wife's recovery is really more like a resurrection. She walks (with a stick and a limp) about the wood shooting – or anyway shooting at – pigeons; we walk together to the Ampleforth Arms.

In September 1994 Sycamore Taverns advertised for tenants with the following advertisement:

AMPLEFORTH ARMS, Risinghurst, Oxford. Large two bar community pub situated in the centre of a mainly residential estate. Approx. ingoing £22,000 inclusive.

The pub closed in 2014, but remained in the ownership of Punch Taverns. The Amp Revival group got it listed as an asset of community value, and in 2015 had the company “The Amp Community Pub Ltd” (RS007261) registered. They fought to keep it at least in part as a pub, with half the building under a community lease and half remaining empty, pending redevelopment. A planning application for seven houses on this site submitted by Box Development Management Ltd (16/03157/FUL) was approved by the East Area Planning Committee on 8 March 2017. This was for:

Part demolition of the existing public house. Part redevelopment and conversion to create a new community run public house at basement and ground floor level and 3 x 2-bed and 3 x 3 bed residential apartments over ground, first and second floors. Erection of 1 x 3-bed dwellinghouse (Use Class C3). Provision of private amenity space, landscaping, car parking and associated infrastructure.

A similar application submitted in December 2017 (17/03342/FUL) was withdrawn in September 2022.

A complete refurbishment of the pub section started at the beginning of October 2017 and the pub reopened on 25 November 2017, run by members of the local community

In March 2018 the pub passed to Heineken's “Star Pubs and Bars” as part of Punch Taverns' slimming down. They planned to invest £326,000 in the pub, installing a kitchen, and renaming it the Risinghurst Arms, and advertised the lease at an annual rent of £39,000.

The Ampleforth Arms is now still owned by Punch Partnerships (PTL) Ltd. the owners of the Ampleforth Arms in Risinghurst. In 2023 they took the premises back and put in new operators under a Temporary Management Agreement. They have now applied for a transfer of the premises licence back to themselves, stating that they were unable to get a signed consent form from the old licence holders.

Pictured above in 2006

Links

• The “Amp Revival” Facebook group

• Oxford Mail, 6 October 2017:
  “Oxford pub Ampleforth Arms in Risinghurst to reopen after more than two years after long fight”
• Oxford Mail, 25 February 2017:
  “Estate pub frequented by Narnia author could reopen this summer if plans are passed”
• Oxford Mail, 1 June 2015:
  “Fight to stop Narnia author's former pub turning into flats”
• Oxford Mail, 25 August 2015:
  “Locals get ‘asset’ order in to save top authors’ pub”
• Oxford Mail, 28 October 2015:
  “Rallying call to join forces, buy shares and save the Ampleforth pub”