The Hidden History of Our Streets
Last updated 8 November 2020. Links tweaked 29 September 2024
The Hidden History of Our Streets
1 | The Loxley Road bomb (and others nearby) (9 May 2020)
[Some of the material is now covered in more detail in September 2024 Chronicles]
2 | Going shopping - where and when? (16 May 2020 - updated October 2020)
3 | The strange symmetry of our streets, and some gobstoppers in between (26 May 2020)
4 | Sophia Sheppard, Magdalen's fairy godmother (31 May 2020)
5 | What's in a (street) name? (31 May 2020)
Nearly all have associations with Oxford: Magdalen, Headington, Isis are perhaps the most obvious ones. But what about the other names? It turns out that most do - Ellerton, Tilehurst, Frewin, Routh and many others - even Loxley itself. Some are literal, some are playful, one is tragic.
6 | My First Zoom Talk: The Hidden History of Loxley Road (15 October 2020) - the first couple of minutes were hilariously chaotic (while the technology got sorted), but it settled down quite nicely.
"The Hidden History of Loxley Road", Zoom Talk by PB, recorded 25 October 2020 - uploaded to YouTube.
What links Wandsworth Common, a Woolly Mammoth, Gravel, the Northern Line, Thomas Cromwell, Endymion Porter, Elephant and Castle, the C18 Cottage Ornee, Fulham Football Club, Trafalgar Square, the world's largest telescope, Earl Spencer, quack medicines, Magdalen College, the Toast Rack, WWI funerals, and Graham Greene's phenomenal friend PY Betts? Listen and you'll find out.
(Click on image to enlarge)
7 | Remembering Eddie Fisher ("Sir Edmund TinTacks"), 8 Loxley Road (Remembrance Sunday, 8th November 2020)
(Click on image to enlarge)
— Burcote Road
— Ellerton Road
— Fieldview
— Frewin Road
— Herondale Road
— Lyford Road
— Magdalen Road
— Multon Road
— Openview
— Routh Road
— Tilehurst Road
— Titchwell Road
— Scape, Bushy Common, Wilderness, Little Common, the Rough Bit — well, what do you call it?
SO many more stories still to tell. But that's all for now, folks.
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Philip Boys ("History Boys")