Early view of Gipsy Lane estate from the south

This estate was built by Oxford City Council from 1926 on a site on the Oxford side of the Boundary Brook that was owned by Magdalen College and leased to the Headington rose-grower John Mattock. It comprised 312 houses, most of which were council houses for rent, but some private houses were also built on existing roads. The architect was H. Kellett Ablett.

Malcolm Graham (in Wholesome Dwellings: Housing Need in Oxford and the Municipal Response, 1800–1939) writes:

In the late 1920s, the development of the Gipsy Lane and South Park [Morrell Avenue] estates was the main focus of attention for the Housing and Town Planning Committee, or the Housing Committee as it became in 1927. The Committee approved the City Engineer’s proposed layout of the Gipsy Lane estate in November 1924, but Mattock’s were cultivating thousands of rose trees for sale on part of the site and, to avoid paying heavy compensation, the City was unable to gain full possession until September 1926. A tender for building roads and sewers on the estate was approved in November and a Gipsy Lane sub-committee eventually submitted recommended house types in May 1927. The most prominent plots on Headington Road and the first four plots in Gipsy Lane were to be above subsidy semi-detached parlour houses intended for immediate sale

The aerial photograph below (Historic England EPW022538) was taken from the west on 11 August 1928. In the foreground is the Gipsy Lane estate in Oxford, almost completely built, and just the other side of the Boundary Brook is the road called Brookside, built outside the city in Headington by Headington Rural District Council:

Some of the houses were on three existing roads:

• The whole of Gipsy Lane
• Part of Headington Road
• Part of Old Road (with thecouncil-house section given the new name Shotover Road, but it has since become part of Old Road, which has also been renumbered twice: details).

Five new roads were created within those three existing roads, all named after local MPs:

• Cardwell Crescent after Edward Cardwell (Liberal MP 1853–1874)
• Grays Road after Frank Gray (Liberal MP in the 1920s and founder of the Oxford Mail). The use of the plural in Grays probably means it also acknowledges his father, Sir Walter Gray, four times Mayor of Oxford.
• Harcourt Terrace after Sir William Harcourt (Liberal MP 1868–1880)
• Stonor Place after Thomas Stonor (Roman Catholic Whig MP of the 1830s)
• Valentia Road after Viscount Valentia (Conservative MP 1895–1917)

All five streets are first listed in Kelly's Directory in 1933. By 1935 the following shops had opened:

1 & 3 Grays Road: Albert John Hewer, shopkeeper
2 Grays Road: Alfred Hazell, greengrocer & post office
4 Grays Road: Charles E. Pearce, tobacconist

The estate is in the parish of All Saints Church.

Lord Valentia winnng the 1906 General Election

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