HEADINGTON
HISTORY

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• First World War

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• Pullen’s Lane

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MARSTON
HISTORY

• Timeline

• Listed Buildings

• Famous people

• Descriptions

• Miscellaneous

 

HISTORY HOME

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Holyoake Hall stands on the site of Holyoake Terrace, built by the Co-op for its Headington employees in 1907 and named after George Jacob Holyoake, an important man in the Co-op movement, who had died the previous year. In 1938 the terrace was demolished and replaced by Holyoake Hall, with shops downstairs (which were used by the Co-op) and a dance hall upstairs.

Until 1980, all the shops on the ground floor of Holyoake Hall at 126–134 London Road (then owned by University College) remained part of the Headington Co-op. The Co-op stretched around the corner into Windmill Road, with the present Buckell & Ballard offices a haberdashery on the ground floor and a ladies’ outfitter on the first floor, while Queen’s was a Co-op grocery.

In 1956 the dance hall upstairs closed, and by 1959 it was a Co-op furniture showroom (including carpets). In 1968 it opened as the Plaza Bingo Hall (later Zetter’s Bingo), and finally it was a snooker hall.

When the Co-op moved to its present site on Stile Road in 1980, the five ground-floor units of Holyoake Hall were let out separately.

	Unit 5	Unit 4	Unit 3		Unit 2	Unit 1
1958– 1980	Co-op ladies’ hairdresser & chemist	Co-op shoe shop	Co-op greengrocer, later furniture		Co-op fresh fish	Co-op Butcher’s
1980	Pet World	Ladbroke’s	Queenie’s coffee room		Charity shop then Focus Electronics then Cake shop	Denton’s Greengrocer’s
1990			Domino’s Pizza
1995			Domino’s Pizza	Oxford Kebab House (moved out 2011
1998
2001	Café Bonjour (renamed QL in 2009 but then returned to old name )				Matthew Clulee Hairdresser (vacant in 2010/11)	Co-op Travel Care	Co-op Funeral Service
2007–		Betfred

There been two successful applications for change of use of the shops in Holyoake Hall:

• In 1977 Ladbroke’s of 10 Windmill Road obtained advance permission to change Unit 4 from retail to licensed betting shop (77/00717/A_H)
• In 1980 the Queen of Hearts of 3 Windmill Road obtrained permission to change Unit 3 from retail shop to coffee room, to include the sale of take-away food and party catering (80/00576/NF). Domino’s Pizza took this take-away over in 1990. Four years later in 1994 Domino’s split Unit 3 in half, and the Oxford Kebab House took the right-hand side of this A3 unit.

In 2003 Holyoake Hall was sold by University College to property developers W.E. Black Ltd of Chesham, and the former hall upstairs was converted into flats.