Dring’s Coaches (now Simon House), Windmill Road
The above image show The Rocket about to depart from Dring's at the top of Windmill Road. This seems like a special excursion as most of the passengers are in uniform, but normally this provided a passenger service down to Oxford at 6d. return until Headington got its first bus service in 1926. The board on the side of the former house at 4 Windmill Road reads at the top“ALFRED DRING, CARRIER” and at the bottom “GWR AGENT”
Dring’s Carriers, later Dring’s Coaches (originally horse-drawn, and later motorized) occupied the north-west end of Windmill Road from about 1907 to 1965. The large stable/garage was right out on the road (see above), and the family lived at No. 2 Windmill Road, which was in behind. They later also occupied No. 4, the detached house to the south. In the 1960s Nos. 2 & 4 and the garage were demolished to make way for Simon House.
Ladies' coach outing from Dring's, c.1950
The two photographs below, kindly supplied by Thomas Gadney, shows another two groups of ladies about to depart on a coach outing with Dring's in the 1950s:
Alfred Dring was born in Charlbury on 27 July 1880, the son of a labourer. By the time of the 1901 census, when he was only 20, he was already a carrier working on his own account and boarding in Church Lane, Old Headington with the widow Fanny Cooper. Within a year or so, he had married his Headington-born wife Edith Honey, and in about 1908 they moved to a new house and premises in Windmill Road.
Alfred Dring is first listed in directories as a carrier in Windmill Road in 1909, and he probably conveyed the produce from West’s and Mattock’s Nurseries in Windmill Road down to their respective stalls in Oxford market. The first photograph above, however, shows that from the start he also took local Headington people on outings, and he also carried laundry.
Dring’s advertising card of 1910 showed that the horse-drawn coach the Rocket did four trips a day to Carfax, leaving Headington at the following times:
- 10.30 am (returning at 12.30pm)
- 2.30pm (returning at 4.30pm)
- 5.30pm (returning at 6.30pm)
- Saturdays only: 8pm (returning at 8.30pm)
The 1911 census shows Alfred Dring (30), described simply as a market carrier, and his wife Edith (32) living at 2 Windmill Road with their two surviving children: Edith (6) and Alfred Edward (3), both born in Headington. (Their daughter Clara had died at the age of six weeks and was buried at Headington Cemetery on 2 April 1907.) Alfred had been baptised at St Andrew’s Church in Old Headington on 5 April 1908, and their fourth child, Walter Edward Dring, was baptised at All Saints Church on 16 April 1916. Edie and Alfred are the children standing at the front with their father in the straw hat in the above picture.
The photograph below shows the side of the Post Office built in 1915 on the north-west corner of Windmill Road, then a gap, and then the side of No. 4 Windmill Road with a large sign advertising the Windmill Road Garages, which had saloon buses and open and closed cars and were agents for the Great Western Railway.
The 1921 census shows Alfred Dring (40) described as a carrier and living at 2 Windmill Road with his wife Edith and their three surviving children Edith (16), Alfred junior (13), and Walter (5), while a chemist lived at No. 4. From 1925 the business is listed in directories as “A. Dring & Sons, carriers, Windmill Road”.
In 1933 the Drings are described for the first time as “motor coach proprietors”. The 1939 Register shows Alfred Charles Dring (born 1908 and described as a coach operator, P.S.V. driver, and mechanic) living at 2 Windmill Road with his wife Mabel, and his father Alfred Dring (born 1880 and described as a motor coach proprietor) living at 4 Windmill Road with his wife Edith and their other son Walter Dring (born 1916 and described as a coach driver).
Alfred Dring senior died in 1947, and Alfred junior continued to live at No. 2 and his brother Walter Edward Dring at No. 4. By 1956 they listed their business as “Dring’s of Oxford (A. C. & W. E. Dring, proprietors)”.
The business closed in about 1965, and on 9 November that year planning permission was granted for a two-storey building with five shops upstairs at 2 & 4 Windmill Road (65/16160/AB_H). Kelly's Directory for 1970 shows the following shops in Simon House (running north to south):
- Unit 1: H. L. Textiles, soft furnishings [Bliss Hair, numbered 5, in 2025]
- Unit 2: Regency Cleaners, dry cleaners [still there, numbered 4, in 2025]
- Unit 3: Fleet, toy dealers [Reaston Brown estate agents, numbered 3, in 2025]
- Unit 4: Truwash, coin-operated launderette [still there, numbered 2, in 2025]
- Unit 5: Penge di Roma, tailors [Armend's Barber's, numbered 1, in 2025].
The buildings behind Simon House
Oxford Dance Studio, New Ground Coffee, and The Depot flats in May 2025
After 1967 the Dring courtyard, as well as providing access to the residential units upstairs at Simon House, was used for various industrial units and workshops. In 1976 Homemix Plant Hire (car hire and contractors' plant hire) was based here.
In 2006 there was a serious fire at Richens Mobility Centre to the north of the site, and in 2008 Richens Care submitted plans for the demolition of the existing building and the erection of a new three-storey building providing 2 x B1 units on the ground floor with 2 x two-bedroom flats, 1 x one-bedroom flat, and 1 x three-bedroom flat on the two upper floors, with an “amenity courtyard” (08/01282/FUL). This permission was renewed in 2011 (11/01582/EXT). The site was acquired by Keble Homes in August 2014 and their new application for the site was approved in March 2016 (15/02612/FUL). The building of the present flats called The Depot commenced soon afterwards. .
Kirby House to the south was occupied as a warehouse with associated showroom and offices in connection with Reynolds Blinds up to June 2010. In January 2012 plans were approved for change of use of the former warehouse to the south called Kirby House to a dance school (11/02798/FUL). The Step-by-Step Design School remained here until about 2017, and it is now the Oxford Dance Studio and the home of the Oxford University Dancesport Club, whose membership is open to all.
On 6 September 2019 New Ground Coffee opened at the workshop next door.
See also Christine Bloxham & Susanne Shatford, The Changing Faces of Headington:
- Book 1: p. 72 (same picture as above of the Rocket at the top of Windmill Road) and p. 85 (picture of Alfred Dring on a coach with two horses about to take a group from the Six Bells in Quarry on an outing
- Book 2, p. 26 (Alfred Dring with his taxi, c.1940) and pp. 85–8 (gallery of photographs of the family and the business)
