I had an hour to spare in Oxford one evening recently, and went for a walk round Jericho, an area I used to know well 35 years ago. I never had a Jericho address, but lived for a while not far away and patronised the area's pubs - much less gentrified then, a mix of local and student. I also did a volunteer project for Oxfordshire Museums about working class housing in Jericho - my first serious use of primary sources.
So strolling round Jericho at leisure for the first time in decades was quite a journey back in time. The streets have survived largely in tact - there's some unsympathetic modern infill which I don't remember from the '70s, some of it already derelict, but on the whole the area has done well. The daft idea of zoning the area "light industrial" - which is why the council bought so many properties here in the late '60s and early '70s and so provided deeds and other raw material for that research project - has long been buried.
But what's happened to the pubs? I remember with particular affection the 'Crown', the 'Globe' and the 'Carpenters'. Now, unless I've got my bearings wildly wrong, all three have gone. Not just renamed. They aren't pubs any more. The buildings are still there, but all are now private houses.
The 'Crown' was a schitzophrenic place - one bar local, the other acid-style with the ceiling and all walls in black. The 'Globe' was a very homely and successful mix of town and gown. And the 'Carpenters' was something else. An old style beershop, tiny, run by Ron and Else. The beer was from wooden casks. If there were more than about eight people in the place, it was crowded - and you would be ushered into the parlour, which looked as if it doubled up as the publicans' front room: settee, comfy chairs, and a huge old radiogram.
Ron and Else, already ancient in the mid-70s, moved on from the 'Carpenters' (on Nelson Street as I remember it) about 1976. The place was already changing, modernising, by the time I left Oxford a year later. And now it's been erased from the streetscape altogether.
So strolling round Jericho at leisure for the first time in decades was quite a journey back in time. The streets have survived largely in tact - there's some unsympathetic modern infill which I don't remember from the '70s, some of it already derelict, but on the whole the area has done well. The daft idea of zoning the area "light industrial" - which is why the council bought so many properties here in the late '60s and early '70s and so provided deeds and other raw material for that research project - has long been buried.
But what's happened to the pubs? I remember with particular affection the 'Crown', the 'Globe' and the 'Carpenters'. Now, unless I've got my bearings wildly wrong, all three have gone. Not just renamed. They aren't pubs any more. The buildings are still there, but all are now private houses.
The 'Crown' was a schitzophrenic place - one bar local, the other acid-style with the ceiling and all walls in black. The 'Globe' was a very homely and successful mix of town and gown. And the 'Carpenters' was something else. An old style beershop, tiny, run by Ron and Else. The beer was from wooden casks. If there were more than about eight people in the place, it was crowded - and you would be ushered into the parlour, which looked as if it doubled up as the publicans' front room: settee, comfy chairs, and a huge old radiogram.
Ron and Else, already ancient in the mid-70s, moved on from the 'Carpenters' (on Nelson Street as I remember it) about 1976. The place was already changing, modernising, by the time I left Oxford a year later. And now it's been erased from the streetscape altogether.
St Barnabas - Kaihsu Tai, CC
Still there, happily, on Canal Street is the marvellous St. Barnabas, parish church of the Oxford Movement (it features in Hardy's Jude the Obscure). The church was closed when I called but from the porch there's a viewing window - I had forgotten just how wonderfully ornate the interior is. An unlikely Oxford jewel.
I ended my stroll at another church - disused this time. What was once St Paul's on Walton Street. Now a bar, still replete with stained glass windows and some of the church fittings. I recall that one of the seminal intellectual events of my youth was held here. A debate beteen E.P. Thompson and (I think) Richard Johnson on Althusser - which mattered a lot then, for reasons I can't quite summon up. I was in Oxford that evening, but didn't make it to the debate. I ended up at the pub instead. Can't remember if it was the 'Crown' or the 'Globe or the 'Carpenters'.
I ended my stroll at another church - disused this time. What was once St Paul's on Walton Street. Now a bar, still replete with stained glass windows and some of the church fittings. I recall that one of the seminal intellectual events of my youth was held here. A debate beteen E.P. Thompson and (I think) Richard Johnson on Althusser - which mattered a lot then, for reasons I can't quite summon up. I was in Oxford that evening, but didn't make it to the debate. I ended up at the pub instead. Can't remember if it was the 'Crown' or the 'Globe or the 'Carpenters'.
RSS Feed