Old Road Prisoner of War Camp at Wood Farm

When I was a kid my grandmother lived in an old cottage at 162 Old Road, Headington. It was wartime, and four doors away there was a road leading up to the gates of a Prisoner of War Camp.

I would say from memory the gates were 40 yards from Old Road. It was a large gateway with a wooden frame and heavily covered with barbed wire, with guards standing at this point. Strange because my memory of that time does not include being able to see the surrounding enclosure, which must have been there as the camp was immediately behind my grandparents’ backyard, but I guess this was because being so young (I was born in 1940), I tended not to stray out into the yard.

I was more aware of the camp’s setup when war was over, as it became a temporary housing site with people living in the huts until the job of rebuilding the cities that had been bombed in the blitz was well underway.

I was also aware of the Italian and German POWs, and the difference. The Germans were guarded when they left the camp to carry out work: they were always accompanied by a squad of British soldiers and we did not speak to them.

The Italians on the other hand, once their country had surrendered, were allowed out fairly freely locally, and indeed my hair was cut a number of times by an Italian barber. Three of them (Antonio, Barbo, and another one whose name I don’t recall) visited my grandparents’ home and would sometimes eat with us as my Grampy kept poultry and had about six allotments so there was always plenty of fresh produce available.

I knew that after the war had finished and the POWs were repatriated they wrote to my grandparents thanking them for the way in which they had been treated. I guess the Germans would have probably liked to have had some more contact with other people because not all Germans were Nazi sympathisers and they were only doing what they had been called up to do.

As for  occupancy by the Axis troops, I would not be able to say if the German and Italians occupied the same areas inside the camp or indeed how they were fed and checked over, which of course would have had to be done.

After the war when the huts were occupied by Brits, I visited some due to them having struck up an accord with locals. They were made of wood that was painted green on the outside and wee heated by a coal-/coke-fired heater, but at least they had a bathroom, something my grandparents did not have in their house, and they also had I think an indoor toilet, again something not found at No. 162 at that time The area of the camp went back over the ground now covered by part of Wood Farm Estate as it now is.

Google Earth Historic Image of Old Road Camp in December 1945,
overlaid by the roads of Wood Farm that later engulfed it

In later years the estate was built on and became Wood Farm Estate. Wood Farm School was built on Titup Hall Drive encompassing a field behind the Crown and Thistle that was then used by Stays Stables for grazing their horses.

Slade Army Camp in Brasenose Woods

In later years prefabs were built further over by the Slade in the former Slade Army Camp, and these were First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Avenue. They were yellow-coloured, but imagine having Fifth Avenue as your home address. Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Avenues were further towards Shotover, and when the Eastern bypass was built (if my memory is correct), Ninth Avenue was on the south side of the bypass. These remained as green huts as far as I recall. They eventually were demolished in the late 1960s.

Christopher Payne
September 2021