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The Britannia Inn on the corner of Lime Walk and London Road was built as a coaching inn around the time that the new London Road was cut through the fields of Headington in the 1770s, making Headington's former coaching inn, Titup Hall on the Old London Road, quite redundant.

The inn is shown on Davis’s 1793–4 map of Headington, when it still had its original name of the White House. By the time of the Headington Enclosure Award of 1805, the inn had been christened with its present name: in that Award, Osler Road is described as "one other public Carriage Road and Driftway … branching out of the said new Turnpike Road near to a certain public House called the Britannia". It is shown as the Britannia Inn on Bryant's 1824 map.

Under that Enclosure Award, Plot 26, comprising the inn and its field for stabling the coach horses, was awarded to William Mott: the land then measured 8 acres 3 roods and 14 perches.

This coaching inn would probably have accommodated travellers passing through Oxford; those needing to visit the city itself would have been more likely to sleep at the Angel or Greyhound Hotel in the High Street or the Clarendon in Cornmarket. But when horses were being changed, passengers would have taken meals at the Britannia.

The diaries of Mary Latimer of Headington House that cover the years 1817–1824 give a good picture of the London coaches that then stopped at Headington. She mentions three: the Blenheim, the Angel, and the Star. Many friends broke a long journey by staying overnight at Headington House, which then conveniently had a lodge on the London Road overlooking the Britannia, including her brothers' young friends on their way to and from boarding school.

Horses were evidently changed at the Britannia, because on 18 December 1817 Mary writes: "Mrs Cooper and Miss Ricketts from Charlton took a luncheon, on their road to London, but only remained while the Coach horses were changed." The other passengers would doubtless have taken their luncheon at the Britannia itself.

It is evident from the diaries that the Star Coach, which travelled via the Britannia to Cornmarket from London, was used by the Headington gentry for short trips to and from central Oxford.

The Britannia coaches also feature extensively in the later diaries of 1830–1836 written by Mary's mother Eliza. She mentions nine coaches that picked up and dropped off passengers in Headington (presumably at the Britannia): there were the Blenheim and the Star as before, plus the Champion, Union, Regulator, King William, Alert, Wonder, and a very fast coach called the Age. There is an interesting vignette of Eliza Latimer's husband Edward waiting in vain at the Britannia on 6 September 1831: "Mr L intended setting off for London & Dover by the King William Coach, but owing to the approaching Coronation the coaches were all full, and after waiting till past one he set off in his gig with the coachman for Wycomb, from whence he proceeded in a chaise to London."

The coming of the railway in the 1840s spelt the death of the coaching inn. As early as 1841, the census shows only one guest staying overnight at the Britannia: the wood engraver Henry Burrows, who would recently have arrived in Headington to join Orlando Jewitt. Similarly at the time of the 1851 census only one person, a dealer in silk goods, was staying at the inn.

The Headington Rate Book for 1850 shows that the inn was then owned by the brewer Henry Hall & Co and occupied by Richard Lindars, and its land (now the top part of Lime Walk) comprised four acres and two roods, with a rateable value of £32 and a gross estimated rental of £38 4s. This was only half the size it had been in 1805.

In 1861 there were just two guests (and a live-in ostler) at the Britannia. By 1871 there were no guests, and the innkeeper was supplementing trade by operating as fly proprietor from the inn. No landlords stayed for long during this period of decline (see table below).

 

The Britannia Field (shown on the left in 1899) occupied the area now covered by the houses at the north of Lime Walk. By 1902 the days of the coaching inn were over and few horses needed stabling, and in that year the Britannia let out its field to Headington (later Oxford) United.

The old stable building still stands to the south of the inn.

In 1910 Dring the carrier started his horse-drawn coach service from Windmill Road to Oxford, and this may have been the final nail in the coffin of the Britannia, whose field was sold in 1914 for the development of the north end of Lime Walk.

 

The postcard below shows the Britannia in about 1940.

The building was completely refurbished in mid–2003 and is now part of the Mitchell’s & Butler Ember Inn chain.