FORTY years ago Malcolm Graham began producing a series of walking guides entitled On Foot In Oxford and he is still going strong.

Much has changed in the city since then, but clearly not Mr Graham’s passion for awakening interest in the history and heritage surrounding anyone who steps foot into the city centre.

For he has risen to the challenge of producing a new series of Oxford Heritage Walks, to take account of the good, bad and ugly developments that have befallen Oxford – as well as our changing attitude as to what is valuable and worthy of protection.

Dr Graham recalled: “Many years ago when I used to lead walks around Oxford, I vividly remember a man in Jericho querying sarcastically whether I was showing people round ‘the slums’. House prices there now tell a different story.”

He first came to Oxford in 1970 as the city’s first full-time local history librarian, taking on the same role for the county council in 1974.

In his new series of guide books he draws on his investigations of just about every corner of Oxford, carried out since his arrival as a 22-year-old with a mop-head haircut.

“One of my initial surprises, in a city which has had more historians than most, was that so little was known about the modern history of Oxford. Things were very different in terms of heritage then,“ he said.

“You had the university which was just as popular in terms of tourism. But there wasn’t a lot of interest in the city and its suburbs.

“Even things like the Covered Market were not in the guide books. It was just ignored as part of the humdrum life of the city.”

The invitation to revisit and expand upon the On Foot in Oxford leaflets, that were published by the city and county councils between 1973 and 1988, came from the Oxford Preservation Trust.

OPT director Debbie Dance said the idea behind the heritage walks is to encourage more people to explore the city and see how its streets and buildings have evolved.

But as well as being a treasure chest of information, the OPT hopes it will serve the greater purpose of helping spare Oxford from further planning disasters by providing “a veritable arsenal of historical evidence for defending those features which make the city a special place”.

A tall order indeed, but as a man who has delivered hundreds of talks and broadcasts on Oxford down the years, at 65 Dr Graham is uniquely well placed to meet it.

“As a teenager in the Swinging Sixties, I was already obsessed with history,” recalled Dr Graham, of Montagu Road, Botley.

“It was initially inspired by a cartoon character in the Beano, who was able to journey back into the past by means of a magic patch in the seat of his shorts.”

When he read history at Nottingham University, the course didn’t include local history.

“I virtually stumbled into the subject as a result of spending my first year in lodgings on the other side of the city,” he said.

“Journeying across Nottingham by bus and on foot made me something of an urban explorer at the age of 18.

“Nottingham had just built a quite dreadful inner relief road called Maid Marian Way, which careered right through Georgian Castle Street. The old Great Central railway, the Victorian equivalent of HS2, was being run down towards closure. ”

His first memories of Oxford when he arrived for an interview 43 years ago remain vivid.

“I had only been once before, stopping off for a drink at the Chequers in High Street on the way to Norfolk.

“The evening before my interview I explored the city centre. I can still recall the excitement of venturing up Queen’s Lane and New College Lane for the first time as night fell.

“For sheer atmosphere, that tortuous route remains one of my favourite Oxford places, quieter now because there is no through traffic.”

He arrived in the city as the clearance of 19th century housing in St Ebbe’s and St Clement’s was nearing completion.

“I just couldn’t believe those nice terraces were being demolished. Thankfully, Jericho was saved by a vigorous local campaign,” he said.

The first Oxford Heritage Walk book, On Foot From Oxford Castle to St Giles’, will certainly bring painful reminders of many acts of vandalism inflicted on the city, not least in Cornmarket and Wellington Square, where in the 1970s brutalist concrete was added to a sedate brick-built Victorian square.

Fittingly the new walk starts from the entrance of Oxford Castle Unlocked, where the OPT created its heritage centre on a site largely hidden from view until Oxford Prison closed in 1996.

He goes on to lead his readers down St Michael’s Street, taking in Cornmarket, Gloucester Street and Little Clarendon Street, before returning via Beaumont Street, Gloucester Green and Bulwarks Lane. Including St Giles was particularly pleasing.

He said: “I never did it in the first series. It was a bit missing from the city centre. I still haven’t done the area south of High Street. So it’s nice to fill in the gaps.”

It will prove an eye-opener even for those who have lived in the city for years.

A well-known route such as New Inn Hall Street, for example, may well be viewed anew as Dr Graham describes unnoticed heritage treasures such as the 16th century gateway of St Mary’s College, founded in 1436, or the two-storey rubble stone building that was once home to the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, when he was at Christ Church.

Even unloved new buildings on Cornmarket occupied by chain stores are shown to form part of a long- hidden Oxford.

It turns out the site of the KFC was once occupied by a gymnasium and dancing school attended by the future Charles II, while the Orange store and WH Smiths both mask 17th century timber-framed buildings.

There is certainly much to regret, as he reminds us of what has been lost.

“It’s hard to imagine that George Street once resembled today’s picturesque Holywell Street,” he observes.

“It was widened and almost entirely rebuilt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“So many building were knocked down just for short term gain.

“St Ebbe’s was very unlucky. If it had lasted just a little longer into the era of conservation areas, it might well now be a trendy area of terraced houses and little galleries. In the 1950s Osney Island was seen as a site for demolition and judged to have outdated houses. Within 20 years it was a conservation area.”

Dr Graham is already working on a second book which will cover the city’s golden heart around Broad Street and Radcliffe Square. While the first series cost 10p, the new books retail at £9.99, although he quickly points out the On Foot series were leaflets, rather than high-quality booklets.

Local artists Laura Potter and Edith Gollnast illustrated the original series. Some are reproduced in the new books, along with additional drawings by Ms Gollnast for the new project.

“The thing about living in Oxford is that, however, long you have been here, you will never know enough about it,” Dr Graham pondered. “You still hear something, and say ‘Why didn’t I know about that?”

Then there is the fast pace of change, never more so than now with plans for a new quarter at Oxpens, a new Westgate and the Radcliffe Infirmary Quarter moving apace.

Walkers arriving back at the Mound, in future years may well find a new science centre standing in its shadow. There is good reason to believe that Dr Graham will not be short of new material for his heritage walks for as long as his legs can carry him.

  • On Foot From Oxford Castle to St Giles’ is published by Oxford Preservation Trust and costs £9.99.

BEST BITS ON THE WALK

Malcolm Graham’s top 10 spots in his new book:
 

  • The atmospheric St George’s Crypt at Oxford Castle, dating from Norman times.
  • Old County Hall, the Neo-Norman fortress with Georgian-type windows, dating from 1840s.
  • The former Maltby’s bookbindery premises in St Michael’s Street, now converted into Bike Zone.
  • 28 Cornmarket, one of the few Cornmarket properties restored to its medieval appearance.
  • St George’s Mansions in Cornmarket, once viewed as Oxford’s first skyscraper.
  • The New Theatre.
  • The former cabmen’s timber shelter in St Giles, used in the days of horse drawn cabs. It is fittingly positioned close to where taxis still stand.
  • Beaumont Palace, now lost, but it was the birthplace of King Richard I and King John.
  • The Old School building in Gloucester Green
  • The Old Fire Station in George Street, abandoned as a fire station in 1971 but retaining large ground floor doors bearing sculpted fireman’s helmet.