Barton IT hub
Barton Information Technology Hub in Underhill Circus opened in 2002 after a £25,000 refurbishment. Run by the county council, it includes twelve new computers with free Internet access.
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Vandalism in Headington
Headington shopping centre suffered from a spate of broken window in 2002s.
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Baroness Young
Janet Young has died at the age of 75. She grew up at 11/13 New High Street (the large grey house called Stone Rise) and attended Headington School.
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Manor Ground was sold for £12 million
Firoz Kassam's company Firoka (London Park Ltd) paid £6 million for the Manor Ground, and just three months later (in January 2002) sold it for £12 million to Nuffield Hospitals, after gaining planning permission for a hospital and 87 flats on the site. But Oxford United creditors failed to gain any extra money from the £6m profit.
Kassam comes in at No. 272 on the Sunday Times Rich List for 2002, and is reckoned to be worth £120m. This is 52 places higher and £20m richer than last year.
Demolition of the stadium and supporters' club began on 29 Apri 2002l, and the building work for the new Acland Hospital and 87 flats starts in August.
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No. 10 becomes City Semicircle
The 10/10A bus-route was split in two on Sunday 5 August 2003. The No. 10 now terminates its current route at Templars Square, while the No. 10A runs from the railway station to the John Radcliffe Hospital via the Cowley Road and Hollow Way. This means that residents of Wood Farm now have to catch two buses to get to the city centre during weekdays. The Chiltern Queens 10C and 10D service still runs on the original city circle route in the evening and on Sundays, but is reduced to an hourly service.
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Diary of Mary Latimer
Miss Mary Latimer (1800–1891), who spent virtually the whole of her long life in Headington, wrote a detailed diary in Italian and French between 1820 and 1826, which was purchased by the Oxfordshire Record Office in 2002. When Mary wrote it, she was living with her parents and eleven surviving brothers and sisters in Headington House, off Old High Street, and she probably chose not to write it in English to keep it from the eyes of her father, Edward Latimer, the Oxford wine merchant, by whom she was thwarted in love.
The diary give a fascinating picture of the life of the gentry in Headington in the early 1820s. The request for someone to translate the diary was picked up by the Oxford Mail from this website, and a volunteer has now been found. |
Somerfield
Somerfield reopened on 14 November 2001 after its £1 million refit. The manager, Colin Sheriff, says, "We've listened to our customers in Headington have have created a concept to deliver what they want from the store."
This concept includes a toilet for the disabled and a baby-changing area. The new entrance in Old High Street should be a great boon for elderly people with a small amount of shopping – but they can't use it, because the till by the door is never in use, and it is much too awkward to pack shopping at the cigarette kiosk. The reason that the new till remains unused is that the assistants get too cold from the draught....
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Trees given chop
Residents in Windmill Road were angry when the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre chopped down a row of mature birch and beech trees screening the car-park.
Work to rebuild the hospital started in May 2002, and is being done in two phases (with the hospital moving into one half while the other is demolished). It was expected to be finished by the end of 2005, and the £35 million cost is funded by the PFI (Private Finance Initiative).
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Sandfield Road
Residents in Sandfield Road say that their road has become a rat-run since the Sandfield Nursery was built at the JR Hospital.
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Stone Age man in Headington
Dr Clive Waddington of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne has been excavating the field opposite the Black Boy in the hope of finding the remains of Ethelred's Palace, and has discovered Mesolithic (Stone Age) material on the site. This indicates that people have lived in Headington for at least 12,000 years. The Oxford Preservation Trust, which owns the field, is now considering whether to fund a full survey. |
Headington brothel robbed
Just like the rest of Oxford, Headington has had a number of brothels in recent years, most notably the Kitten Club (which moves around) and "Sasha and Friends" (which is permanently based in the London Road). This is a fact not usually publicized in the local newspapers, which enjoy a considerable revenue from the advertisements of these "massage parlours". On 11 December 2001 two men from the Headington area were found guilty of robbing the London Road brothel on 23 December 2000.
Headington councillor Stephen Fairweather-Tall pledged to bring up the subject of how to remove brothels from residential areas at Headington's Area Committee meeting.
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Headington Hill Park
We are now into the seventh year of the City Council's ten-year Management Plan. The plan includes a description of the trees that were in this 19-acre park in 1880 (transcript provided here), and its main aim is to introduce rare and interesting trees and to develop it as an arboretum. The council, in partnership with Oxford Brookes, is now proposing to link Headington Hill Hall with its park again. At present, although the public are allowed in the grounds of both, they are not able to cross from one to the other. Long-term aims include developing Dairy Lodge (opposite Cheney Lane) for educational purposes and improving the Marston Road entrance. |
Sophie Lancaster leaves
The disbanding of the Oxford City Centre Management Partnership (which is being replaced by a city centre company run by a board of business representatives and councillors) means that Headington has lost the services of Sophie Lancaster, who has been seconded to the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions for 12 months. |
G. H. Williams
Congratulations to George Williams on his 90th birthday on 4 May 2001. He started working for his father, the eponymous G. H. Williams, when he was 13: the shop then occupied the present Cotswold Collection shop across the road, and the firm made bicycles and sold petrol as well as doing repairs. Now, 77 years later, he still works in the smaller cycle shop near Bury Knowle Park with his son, daughter, and retired son-in-law.
His father, G. H. Williams, can be found in the 1891 census as a schoolboy of nine living with his family at 117 Lime Walk. |
Central Headington: Residents' Parking
A consultation document on a revised scheme has been sent to central Headington residents by the county council, which has taken over responsibility for traffic management in Oxford from the city. Some roads show a small reduction in the number of parking spaces generally. The"residents' only" parking signs will have to be removed from Norton Close, Nursery Close, and Cecil Sharp Place because no authorization for the signs was obtained by the city council; and the council admit that restrictions in the Lime Walk area are not being enforced because the road markings have worn away!
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Barton
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Miscellaneous
- Brian Aldiss angry that Oxford Bus Company have labelled his road as Barton Lane yet again on their bus map:
Oxford Mail, 5 May 2001:
"Street name left off city bus map"
- City councillor Catherine Hodgkinson:
Oxford Mail, 16 November 2001:
"Resignation sparks attack"
- Headington FunDay 2001:
Oxford Mail, 3 December 2001:
"Christmas is Fun, Fun, Fun!"
- Headington grave-digger:
Oxford Mail, 8 November 2001:
"There is nobody here who can hurt you"
- Butcher's Arms renovation:
Oxford Mail, 22 May 2001:
"Mayor goes behind the bar"
- Butcher's Arms award:
Oxford Mail, 4 December 2001:
"Pub wins award in contest"
- All Saints vicar's sermon:
Oxford Mail, 19 January 2001:
"Sermon is worth of good book"
- No. 10 bus service:
Oxford Mail, 1 August 2001:
"Unreliable bus service to be split in two"
- Headington Poetry Competition 2001:
Oxford Mail, 9 January 2002:
"Mechanic wins top poetry prize"
- Control Plus unable to enforce parking restrictions in Bateman Street:
Oxford Mail, 8 June 2001:
"Lack of parking lines means no penalties"
- Thornhill Park & Ride:
Oxford Mail, 31 October 2001:
"Thornhill to double in size"
- Fire at Mediterranean Fish Bar:
Oxford Mail, 21 January 2002:
"Fish shop damaged"
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Manor Ground development 2001–3
See the Manor Ground development subsection |
Local Shop News 2002
Vente Tsunami is the exotic new name for Styles Hairdressing in Windmill Road
Top to Tail, 4D New High Street: The application for change of use from dog-grooming parlour (Class A1) to estate agency/ financial services (Class A2) was approved.
Spiers Blake An application for the change of use of the upstairs offices at 95 London Road to a dental surgery was also allowed. |
Hospitals
The Oxford Centre for Enablement opened at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington. The former Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre, Ritchie Russell House, the carer charity Crossroads, Dialability, and the Oxford Wheelchair Service will all transfer to this new £9.1m centre.
Cancer Unit. The Government Health Secretary has announced that a new £60m cancer unit is to be built at the Churchill Hospital, opening in 2007:
Transplant Centre. Launch of appeal to build a new transplant centre at the Churchill Hospital:
MRI suite. Actress Sheila Hancock unveiled a plaque at the Churchill Hospital on 12 September 2002 to mark the opening of a £1.75m MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) suite:
Trauma Unit. A new £8.5m trauma unit with 56 new beds opened at the John Radcliffe Hospital on 29 October. It was built in the record time of 18 months on the site of a former carpark:
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Headington Conservative Club
Following Iain Duncan Smith's visit to Oxford on 31 October, The Times of 1 November 2002 focussed on Headington Conservative Club (on the corner of Windmill Road and Bateman Street), and the views of local Headington drinkers on the Tory leader. |
Theatre operating!
Author Joanna Trollope has opened Headington's first theatre, in the grounds of Headington School. The school says that many events at this £1.5m, 260-seat performing arts centre will be open to the public, with money raised going to Douglas House Hospice. |
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Headington salon top
Mathew Clulee Hairdressing in London Road was awarded the title of favourite salon by the national magazine Hair in 2002. |
Headington Buds
These were remembered in the Oxford Mail of 2001: details here. |
Contra-flow cycle lanes
The contra-flow cycle lanes in Kennett Road and New High Street are now operational
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Accidents in centre of Headington
On Tuesday 23 October 2001 a motorcyclist was hit by a car in the middle of the London Road opposite Kennett Road, at much the same spot as Mrs Ann Weygang (64) of Horwood Close was struck down just over two weeks earlier: she later died in hospital). Another woman was killed just over a year ago crossing the London Road here.
On Saturday 27 October 2001at 8.50 p.m. five cars were involved in an accident at the Windmill Road junction with Langley Close.
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Harry Potter wizard
Harry Robinson of London Road will not be playing Professor Albus Dumbledore in the next Harry Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban .
The Sunday Times of 27 October 2002 stated:
"An outsider to play the snowy-bearded Dumbledore is Harry Robinson, a bit-part actor who plays a wizard on the stairs greeting children as they arrive at Hogwarts in the first two films. He has previously played small roles in films such as Shadowlands and also acted as Harris's double."
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Iron Age Headington
John Moore Heritage Services investigated the Manor Ground at the beginning of July prior to the start of building work and found a large amount of pottery believed to date from the first century BC. There is likely to be a burial site on the settlement, which extended northwards towards the John Radcliffe Hospital. All the artefacts found on the Manor Ground will go to the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock.
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Hospitals and traffic problems
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Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre
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Cheney School
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School reorganization
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Headington's most expensive house?
The Oxford Times of 2 November 2001 advertised a house in Headington for £1.5 million: it is North End in Jack Straw's Lane. This is surely the highest price ever asked for a Headington house. |
Manor Ground site
- Oxford Mail, 29 June 2000:
"Manor Ground plan proposed"
- Oxford Mail, 27 July 2000:
"Manor hospital plan rejected"
- Oxford Mail, 22 December 2000:
"Hospital plan for the Manor
- Oxford Mail, 20 January 2001:
"School may transfer to the Manor Ground"
- Oxford Mail, 8 March 2001:
"Public get say on Manor site school"
- LibDem survey, March 2001:
Survey (PDF format) on use of site
- Oxford Mail, 23 March 2001:
"Kassam: 'Settle it by Wednesday' "
- Oxford Mail, 4 May 2001: "Football: Kassam snaps up the Manor"
- Oxford Mail, 5 May 2001:
"£40,000 paid in Manor deal"
- Oxford Mail, 26 June 2001:
"Hospital plan 'will increase traffic' "
- Oxford Mail, 5 July 2001:
"Acland Hospital Manor plan rejected"
- Oxford Mail, 5 September 2001:
"Manor Ground plan would be overbearing"
- Oxford Mail, 6 September 2001:
"New site will help hospital services"
- Oxford Mail, 6 November 2001:
"Kassam welcomes Manor Ground decision"
- Oxford Mail, 19 April 2002:
"Hospital project worries residents"
- Oxford Mail, 1 May 2002:
"Manor Ground sold for £12million"
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Art
Sculpture in Bury Knowle Park:
Korky Paul unveils Headington subway art:
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Planning
Totem pole at 35 New High Street:
Radcliffe Infirmary gains permission to move to Headington:
Trees of Upper Meadow:
Lower Farm:
St Hilda's to turn youth hostel in Jack Straw's Lane into flats:
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