Cottages, now 27. 29, 31, & 33 St Andrew’s Road
The above postcard dates from around the time of the First World War and shows St Andrew’s Road, looking east from its junction with Osler Road when there were thirteen eighteenth-century cottages here.
The first three cottages to the east ran at right angles to the road down the church wall, as shown clearly in this photograph, taken by Cyril Arapoff just before demolition. These presumably replaced the two cottages with an orchard and close adjoining the churchyard where the curates used to live until they fell into decay in 1768.
These thirteen cottages were pulled down in 1937 and were replaced by just four large terraced houses that resemble a row of cottages, designed by R. Fielding Dodd, who was unable to use thatch for roofing as he had hoped. The photograph below of the same view in 2025 shows that these houses (unlike their predecessors) are set well back from the road, and the site occupied by the two cottages to the west was left vacant.
Map showing the cottages in 1900 side-by-side with one showing the present houses
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These cottages were the subject of many postcards, and two more examples are shown below. Note that the cottage with the dormer window around the middle of the row has a slate roof in all three old photographs.
The slate roof of the first of the three cottages running down the church wall can just be glimpsed in the photograph below:
This photograph by Henry Taunt (Historic England BB72/06691) shows the cottages to the west of the row in September 1915:
These cottages were condemned in the late 1930s. Four prominent people who lived in Old Headington – John Johnson of Bareacres in Barton Lane, Professor E. G. T. Liddell of the Hermitage in Old High Street, Alec Smith, Warden of New College, who owned White Lodge, and Dr A. B. Emden of Dunstan Road – put up the money to build the present houses, which were handed over to the Oxford Preservation Trust, which charges a shilling a year ground rent on a 999-year lease.
The four new houses are shown below in 2022 on GoogleMaps:
The house on the left (33 St Andrew's Road, below) has been the vicarage of St Andrew's Church since 1977:
The numbering of the north side of St Andrew's Road
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Inhabitants of the thirteen old cottages at the time of the 1921 census
The forty people living in the former cottages on this site at the time of the 1921 census are shown in the table below (running westwards from the church, with the first three cottages at right-angles to the road).
It is notable that thirteen of the women who lived here were laundresses. Originally just one pump supplied water for them all, but cold-water taps had recently been fitted in the cottages, and they had the long gardens necessary to hang numerous sheets.
Former address |
Name of householder at time of 1921 census |
11 Church Street |
Mrs Jane Martha Smith (62), a widowed laundress, |
13 Church Street |
Thomas Henry Newell (59), who worked as an agricultural labourer in Barton, |
15 Church Street |
Arthur Cooper (46), a builder's labourer who worked for Hinkins & Frewin, |
The above three cottages were at right angles to the street running alongside the church wall |
|
17 Church Street |
Mary Ann Morris (71), a widow |
19 Church Street |
Ernest John Smith (52), a market gardener working on his own account |
21 Church Street |
William John Harris (49), a dyer & cleaner working from home on his own account |
23 Church Street |
William Heard (40), a general labourer with the Royal Engineers at Didcot, |
25 Church Street |
Harriet Margaret Louch (63), a widowed laundress & employer working from home, |
27 Church Street |
Charles Cooper (46), a bricklayer working for Hinkins & Frewin, |
29 Church Street |
Eliza Coppock (70), a widow, |
31 Church Street |
Thomas Taylor (76), a retired farm labourer, |
33 Church Street |
Jane Pritchard, a widow of 69, with her daughter Lydia (17), who was a domestic servant and the only member of the household who was in employment, plus two grandchildren surnamed Pritchard, as well as her married daughter Annie Cove and her husband and daughter. |
35 Church Street |
William Stockford (27), a farm labourer, with his wife and two young children, plus his brother Frank (19), who worked for a market gardener, and his sister Phyllis (17). |
