The above range of shops in Old High Street was built in the mid-1920s and was originally Nos 1–5 Carfax Buildings High Street.

The old address of the shops matches the current occupants as follows:

• 1 and 2 Carfax Buildings: now 1 Old High Street, and part of Chancellor’s Estate Agents
• 3 & 4 Carfax Buildings: now 3 & 5 Old High Street, and occupied by La Croissanterie
• 5 Carfax Buildings: now 7 Old High Street, and occupied by Monaco.

The photograph below, dating from the mid-1920s, shows that the original occupant of 1 Carfax Buildings was the Oxfordshire Farmers Bacon Factory Ltd, and the end of the word “tobacconist” can be seen on the blind next door.

In the 1940s when Old High Street was renumbered, the shops took that address and ceased to be known as Carfax Buildings. Old High Street was renumbered twice more (in the 1950s and in 1970), and there were minor adjustments here.

The shop on the right of the group of four has been attached to 107 London Road on the corner since the 1940s, when Wild & Steele (below), the wireless engineers who had a shop on the London Road since 1934, expanded around the corner.

In 1990 Chancellor’s Estate Agents obtained planning permission to change both shops from A1 (retail) to Class 2 (estate agent): 90/00952/NF.

1 & 2 Carfax Buildings became part of 107 London Road in 1953 and are dealt with there.

* Miranda was a chain of five shops in Oxford: two were in Headington (one here and the other on the London Road), one in Summertown, one in Cowley, and one in George Street. They were run by Margot Forbes, who named them after a friend's horse, and her son Peter Forbes (photograph of them outside the London Road shop when it closed in May 1990). Peter continued to live in Headington, and sold quality door furniture at the Thursday Gloucester Green Market until his death in 2025.

Above: Advertisement for Wild & Steele in The Windmill (the magazine of
Headington County Primary School in Windmill Road), Summer 1953