Grandpont
| Grandpont | |
  Grandpont Grandpont shown within Oxfordshire | |
| OS grid reference | SP510053 |
|---|---|
| Civil parish | unparished |
| District | Oxford |
| Shire county | Oxfordshire |
| Region | South East |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Oxford |
| Postcode district | OX1 |
| Dialling code | 01865 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | Oxford West and Abingdon |
| Website | Oxford City Council |
| |
Grandpont is a mainly residential area in south Oxford. It is west of Abingdon Road, and consists mainly of narrow streets that run at right-angles to the main road, with terraced late-Victorian and Edwardian houses.
It also contains the Grandpont Nature Park — a riverside park managed by Oxford City Council (grid reference SP510054). The park covers 7.4 acres (3.0 ha) and was created in 1985 on the site of a gas works that was demolished in 1960. The former railway bridge, used to carry coal from the main railway line across the River Thames to the older gas works in St Ebbes on the north bank, still stands, and is in use as a footbridge. A later bridge, Grandpont Bridge, provides a more direct pedestrian and cycle route across the river to St Ebbes.
History
The name of the area derives from the Grandpont, a medieval stone causeway now known to survive within the core of the modern Abingdon Road for a distance of at least 700 metres south of the city centre.[1] The causeway may have been first built in the Anglo-Saxon era, and rebuilt in the late 11th century[2] by the first Norman lord of Oxford, Robert D'Oyly I, crossing the low-lying ground south of the City, still very liable to winter flooding from the nearby River Cherwell.
In 1279 there were 62 houses in Grandpont. The suburb grew slowly in the following centuries, and extensive development did not take place until the 19th century. In 1844 the Great Western Railway opened Oxford's first railway station in what is now Western Road, and that stimulated development.[3]
Until 1889 Grandpont was in Berkshire, although it was a tithing of the parish of St Aldate's, Oxford. The area was added to the municipal borough of Oxford and to Oxfordshire in 1889.[4] The Church of England parish church of Saint Matthew, Grandpont was built in 1890,[5] presumably as a chapel of ease, and became a parish separate from St Aldate's in 1913.[3]
References
- ↑ "What lies beneath" — Annie Dodd, Oxford Today, 2004
- ↑ Crossley & Elrington, 1979, pages 284-295, section "Bridges"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hibbert, 1988, s.v. Grandpont
- ↑ Crossley & Elrington, 1979, pages 260-264, section "Modern boundary extensions"
- ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 335
Sources
- Crossley, Alan; Elrington, C. R. (eds.); Eleanor Chance, Christina Colvin, Janet Cooper, C.J. Day, T.G. Hassall, Nesta Selwyn (1979). A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 4. Victoria County History.
- Hibbert, Christoper (ed.). The Encyclopaedia of Oxford. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-333-39917-X.
- Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 335. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
External links
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