History of the newsagent’s shop
14 Windmill Road, Headington
This postcard shows the top end of Windmill Road in the 1930s. The double-fronted building on the right is the present 14 Windmill Road. The shop was built in 1910: this date is engraved in stone over the entrance.
The detail on the right shows a close-up of the shop. The sign over the front reads: "Newsagent & Stationer W. WHITCHELO & SON Wholesale & Retail"
William Henry Whitchelo, who had been a newsagent in New High Street from 1909, moved into these premises in about 1914. The shop remained under his name for forty years until 1954: he is listed in directories first as a newsagent (1915–1918); then as a secondhand furniture dealer (1919–1921); and finally as tobacconist (1922–1954). (From 1922 the shop next door at No. 12 served as a newsagent, initially under Stephen Danbury.) Whitchelo produced a number of postcards of Headington: examples include Windmill Road itself, the new council houses on the London Road, and the Wingfield Hospital.
In 1955 English & Sons (newsagents at No. 12 next door) took over this shop, and initially kept it on as a separate tobacconist’s. By 1964 they had moved their whole business into No. 12, which again resumed its original function as a newsagent’s. English & Sons continued until the late 1970s.
By 1980, it was taken over by Edgingtons (then the ironmongers at No. 12 next door) who used it for their carpets department.
By the late 1980s it again became a newsagents, under the management of Balfour News, which was taken over by the Co-operative Wholesale Society in 2004.
The shop closed down in October 2005 and is still empty in 2007.
