Lost stations and halts
Oxford's mainline stations in 1935
Click or tap to see this image on the Britain from Above website
Aerial view from the east taken in 1935
Aerofilms Collection EPW047766, courtesy of Britain from Above
Having introduced the stations at Botley Road and Rewley Road on previous pages, here is an aerial photograph of them taken during 1935. It gives a good oversight into their relative positions and associated facilities. The actual locomotive facilities and marshalling yards etc. underwent significant changes over the years and fall outside both the area shown in the image and the intended scope of this page.
Botley Road crosses the image from the bottom left to top right and just below centre, the bridge under the railway and the original line of the road when it crossed on the level can be clearly seen. The station nearest is Rewley Road with its large goods building below and the shorter passenger building with the overall roof just above. Above that are the platforms and roofs of the Botley Road station. Most of its associated sidings etc. are out of shot, but some can be seen to the left of the main road. On the extreme right, Sheepwash Channel connects the river and canal passing under the low swing bridge which gives rail access into Rewley Road sidings and station, then under the higher (only slightly!) GWR bridge.
There are a couple of other buildings worth mentioning.
The large, and obviously industrial, building near the centre left of the image is the generating station of the Oxford Electric Company Ltd. which was opened in 1892. Barges transported the coal used to power the steam driven turbines. Converted to use oil for just a few years, generating ceased in 1969 with the large building eventually becoming a facility of the University of Oxford. Electricity was generated at 2,000 volts d.c. and the company pioneered an innovative system for distributing electricity across its network which became known as the ‘Oxford System’. Initially, production was on a modest scale supplying just five street lamps and 11 businesses, but during its first year of operation the company installed seven thousand 35watt lamps, and by 1895 almost all the colleges and some university buildings were electrified. It has been said that water taken from the river was pumped back warm, and people could swim and wash their hair in it all year round.
Just above centre towards the right is a very large light coloured building. This imposing building, which opened in late 1930, was Oxford's first Ice Skating Rink
Oxford Ice Rink
The Oxford Mail, 25th November 2014, it also contained a ballroom two cafes and a restaurant. In the summer of 1933 it was temporarily converted into the Rink Cinema, with seating for 1,500 but reverted back to an ice skating rink for the winter season. In early 1934 it re-opened as the Majestic Cinema, and was taken over in 1940 to house evacuees from London, being used for this purpose until January 1941. Never opening again as a cinema the building was used as a hostel, a Frank Cooper marmalade factory, then an MFI furniture store. It was demolished in the 1980s and replaced by a modern warehouse containing MFI and a large Halfords store. The whole site was again cleared to make way for a new Waitrose foodstore and car park which opened on 15th October 2015.
Over on the left hand side of the image are two newly built warehouses at the end of Ferry Hinksey Road. It is not known when these were built, or for whom, but the whole area went on to be developed as the Osney Mead Industrial Estate during the 1960s and after.
The thin light coloured line going across the image near the top is a new road which had been opened in 1932 and ran from South Hinksey to join the Botley Road near the bottom of Cumnor Hill. Constructed initially as a single carriageway, it would be widened in the 1960s and extended north around the top of Oxford to become part of what is now the A34 dual carriageway between the Botley and South Hinksey interchanges. When first opened it was little used as it didn't really connect anywhere up and so became known as 'The Road to Nowhere'. At its northern end it cut through the remains of the abandoned medieval village of Seacourt (or Seckworth). The whole area has been developed destroying any remains of the village, but its name is remembered in the large 'Seacourt Tower' and 'Seacourt Retail Park'.
