Cowley, Oxfordshire

Coordinates: 51°43′59″N 1°12′54″W / 51.733°N 1.215°W / 51.733; -1.215
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Florence Park, Oxford
)

Cowley
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townOxford
Postcode districtOX4
Dialling code01865
PoliceThames Valley
FireOxfordshire
AmbulanceSouth Central
UK Parliament
WebsiteCowley News
List of places
UK
England
Oxfordshire
51°43′59″N 1°12′54″W / 51.733°N 1.215°W / 51.733; -1.215

Cowley (

automotive industry - historically it was the home of the car manufacturer Morris (later absorbed into British Leyland, then the Rover Group), which has now evolved into Mini
.

History

The Cowley area has been inhabited since

East Oxford. The western portion of the original parish of Cowley was split off and became part of the city of Oxford in 1889, and was given the name of Cowley St John, though today it is often called the Cowley Road area, after the road across the fields from Oxford
to Cowley villages.

The term Cowley today usually refers to the remainder of Cowley (the parish of Cowley

Matilda of Boulogne founded Temple Cowley here for the Knights Templar.[2] The house became part of the Oxford Military College which was built on its grounds in the 19th century. In 1864, the Wycombe Railway between High Wycombe and Oxford
was built through Cowley, but at this time the village was so small that the railway company did not provide it with a station.

Cowley

Society of St. John the Evangelist, a Church of England religious order, was founded near Cowley Road in the parish of Cowley. SSJE was the first long-lasting Anglican religious order for men since the Reformation. The members were frequently known as the "Cowley Fathers". In 1868 the Eddison and Nodding Company factory was founded in Cowley. John Allen bought it in 1897 and renamed it the Oxford Steam Plough Company. He later renamed it again as John Allen and Sons, and diversified into manufacturing other agricultural and horticultural machinery including the successful Allen Scythe powered by a small Villiers
petrol engine. The works closed in the early 1980s, and the Templars Shopping Park formerly known as John Allen Centre retail park has since been built on the site.

The

Templas Square shopping center (previously it had been known as "Cowley Centre", and sometimes still is). In the same decade the railway between Princes Risborough and Oxford
closed, but the track between Kennington Junction and Cowley remains open for freight in and out of the car factory.

Between 1980 and 1992 the headquarters of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) was located in a converted barracks building at Cowley Barracks on James Wolfe Road, Cowley. The UKWMO was the organisation responsible for initiating the four-minute warning in the event of a nuclear attack on the UK and was disbanded at the end of the Cold War. Co-located with HQUKWMO was the Headquarters of No 3 Oxford Group Royal Observer Corps[3] whose underground protected nuclear bunker at the Cowley site opened in 1965. Parts of the bunker were demolished in 1995, however most of it was refurbished including the air filtration systems. The site now belongs to Oxford Brookes University who built student accommodation on the site, and now use the former bunker as a storage facility making it the only student halls in the country with its own nuclear shelter.

In 1921 the civil parish had a population of 2790.[4] On 1 April 1929 the parish was abolished and merged with St Giles and St John.[5]

Morris Motors

Main article: Plant Oxford

The Cowley area was transformed after 1912 when William Morris bought the former Oxford Military College and moved Morris Motors Limited into it from its former premises in Oxford. He expanded into "The Old Tin Shed" in 1914 and then into a huge complex of purpose-built production lines in Cowley, as Morris pioneered Henry Ford-style mass production in the UK. The Great Western Railway, which had taken over the Wycombe Railway, opened a station called Morris Cowley to serve some of the thousands of workers commuting to the factory. In 1933, a goods yard was built beside the line to bring supplies into the factory and take completed vehicles away. This yard still exists and serves the current vehicle-manufacturing plant, though the railway beyond has long been lifted.

From the 1920s through to the 1960s, Cowley expanded into a huge industrial centre. In the Great Depression many people left areas of high unemployment such as South Wales and moved to the Cowley area to work in Cowley's factories. Large areas of housing were built and rented out to the migrants. Florence Park was one area built in the 1920s for a private landlord to rent to new workers. The houses looked nice but they were poorly built and maintained, until the tenants held a rent strike and forced the landlord to make repairs. Most Florence Park houses are now owner-occupied, and the area's tree-lined roads are now a popular neighbourhood in which to live. In World War II the Morris factory produced many de Havilland Tiger Moth training aeroplanes for the war effort and there was also the No 1 Metal and Produce Recovery Depot run by the Civilian Repair Organisation to handle crashed or damaged aircraft and even the wreckage of enemy aircraft was processed here. Paul Nash was inspired to paint Totes Meer based on sketches he made of the recovery depot.

Despite successive company

Pressed Steel Fisher plants. Unipart
is also a major employer in Cowley, with premises next to the car factory. In later years Morris Motors and Pressed Steel became one company. Subsequently the Morris's site was closed down, demolished, and redeveloped as the Oxford Business Park.

Cowley today

The car

Pressed Steel Fisher site and transfer the Mini from Longbridge to Cowley, enabling the Longbridge site to continue to produce all the Rover products. BMW retained ownership of the Cowley plant, formerly Pressed Steel, to build the all-new Mini that was launched in the spring of 2001. It has been the best selling car to be built at the plant since the Maestro and Montego in the 1980s. The Morris Motors factory expanded with factory complexes on both sides of the Oxford
Road. Although Morris started his original work on the outskirts of the city the Cowley site quickly became the production site for high volume production.

It was the original base of Morris cars when the marque was founded in 1912, and production continued at the factory until 1982, with models including the

South Asian communities.[8]

Sports and leisure

Speedway racing at Cowley in 1980

Cowley has a strong sporting tradition. In 1938

St Luke's church nearby. Morris Motors
Athletic & Social Club in nearby Crescent Road has a large sports ground and club house.

Until 2009 on

Second World War. Len's son Joe Johnson was an international motocross star in the 1960s until he settled down to run the cafe alongside Aubrey and his son, Andrew, after Len's death. After Aubrey's death in the 1980s the cafe was run by Andrew and Joey to the end. This cafe suffered an armed robbery on 16 January 2008[14]
and closed in 2009. The building is now occupied by Oxford Spin & Fitness centre.

Education

Schools serving Cowley include Greyfriars Catholic School and Oxford Spires Academy.

In popular culture

Cowley is a principal setting in the novel

Protestant Reformation never occurred. Cowley was the site of the Holy Victory in the War of English Succession (where 'Henry the Abominable' attempted to seize the throne from his nephew Stephen II, resulting in a papal crusade). As a result, it was renamed Coverley and made the ecclesiastical capital of England, surpassing the secular capital of London
in terms of importance.

On his 1992 tour of England (heard on the posthumously released Shock and Awe album), the comedian and satirist Bill Hicks stated that he had found the "Alabama of Britain" whilst attending a radio interview in Cowley.[15]

Cowley is referenced in the lyrics of the song "Zorbing" by the British alternative indie folk band Stornoway: "Been Zorbing through the streets of Cowley".

Young detective Endeavour Morse is based at Cowley Road police station in the Inspector Morse prequel Endeavour.

Notable people

References

  1. ^ *Lobel, Mary D, ed. (1957). Victoria County History: A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 5: Bullingdon Hundred. pp. 76–96.
  2. ISBN 978-0-7538-2611-9
    .
  3. ^ ROC HQ locations and photos
  4. A Vision of Britain through Time
    . Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  5. ^ "Relationships and changes Cowley CP/AP through time". A Vision of Britain through Time. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  6. ^ BBC News
  7. ^ Bennett Crescent Oxford
  8. ^ "Oxford City Council Cowley Ward Profile". Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  9. ^ Greyhound racing Archived 2006-04-24 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Oxford Cheetahs
  11. ^ Closure of Temple Cowley Pools Archived 2015-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ "Library services". Archived from the original on 28 April 2006. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
  13. ^ Record Office
  14. ^ The Page Turner (16 January 2008). "Armed gang raid cafe". Oxford Mail. Newsquest Oxfordshire. Retrieved 15 January 2010.
  15. ^ Bill Hicks "Salvation" on YouTube

Sources

External links
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