On 4 April 1934 William Morris (later Lord Nuffield) bought whole of Wood Farm, including Open Magdalen, from Magdalen College for £26,000: his grandfather Richard Pether had been the tenant of the farm for many years.

The first people to live on Wood Farm were captured Italians and German at the Old Road Prisoner-of-War Camp. When the last German prisoners moved out in 1948, the huts were occupied by homeless people who paid rent to Oxford City Council.

In about 1950 William Morris (now Viscount Nuffield) sold Wood Farm to Oxford City Council for development.

In May 1951 planning application 51/01745/A_H was approved for 116 Easiform houses in five newly created roads: Pauling Road, Palmer Road, Titup Hall Drive, Wood Farm Road, and part of Masons Road (18–48 even and 1–51 odd nos). The first 510 council houses of Wood Farm were built from 1953 onwards, carefully leaving the Old Road Camp intact. This aerial view of that year shows the first roads that were laid out and the earliest houses encircling the camp.

The photograph below (Historic England JLP01/08/008592) shows a large crowd gathering on 1 May 1953 for the ceremonial opening by Ernest Marples (then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government) of a house on the Wood Farm estate. It was celebrated as it was the 30,000th post-war Easiform house:

There are more Historic England photographs of this occasion at JLP01/08/008584, t JLP01/08/008587, JLP01/08/008593, JLP01/08/008598, and JLP01/08/008602.

In 1956 the Old Road Camp closed down and the huts removed to allow further building.

Wood Farm Junior Mixed and Infant School opened in Titup Hall Drive in 1956.

The farm continued to operate at a reduced size until the mid-1960s: it was owned by R. C. White until 1964 and was then known as White’s Farm.

By 1960 a small local shopping centre had opened in Atkyns Road, with the following shops

  3: Good Cheer Cellars wine & spirit merchants
  5: T. Thakker greengrocers
  7: A. R. Amos domestic stores
  9: D. Ballantine Ltd dispensing chemists
11: Peter J. Course, newsagent, stationer, confectioner & toy dealer
13: V. Smith, shopkeeper
15–19: Oxford & District Co-operative Society Ltd
21: Mrs F. H. Hulme, confectioner and tobacconist.

In January 1961 the first application for Forester’s Tower was approved, but this was changed in 1965 to a 15-storey block of flats containing 57 two bedroom flats, 28 one bedroom flats, and 62 stores (65/10079/A_H). This permission was conditional on the erection of an adequate number of garages for use by occupants of the proposed flats (to be constructed and brought into use at the same time as the flats), and in May 1966 planning application 66/17606/E_H for these garages and the street layout was approved.

In 1968 outline planning application was granted for further development to the south and in November 1973 the full application 73/01537/A_H was approved for: “Phase 1 residential development for 54 houses, 48 flats and 3 bungalows for disabled persons” in Atkyns Road (2–10 even nos); Leiden Road (1–-67 odd and 2–102 even nos); and Holland Place.

The Slade Nursery transferred from the Slade to Wood Farm School in 1983.

Wood Farm is in the parish of Holy Trinity Church in Quarry.

See also Oxford Preservation Trust: Wood Farm Community History,
with a downloadable report by Liz Woolley