We complain about many things in Oxford today, but just imagine what life was like 250 years ago.

Roads were poorly maintained, while streets were dirty and badly lit and blocked by stalls and carts on market days.

Pedestrians had to jostle with horse-drawn traffic and risk a soaking from rainwater pouring from buildings.

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In 1771, after centuries of rivalry, Town and Gown (the city and university) came together to tackle major and mundane issues that neither had been able to resolve.

The Oxford Improvement Act was passed in Parliament, establishing a body called Paving Commissioners with compulsory purchase powers and authority to raise rates, levy tolls and borrow money for improvements.

It covered street paving, lighting and cleansing as well as the rebuilding of Magdalen Bridge, the creation of the Covered Market and the reshaping of the main streets.

The commissioners included the University vice-chancellor, city mayor, college heads, professors, senior town councillors and parish representatives. During the 1770s, the architect John Gwynn provided the group with professional advice.

Action was swift - the north and east gates (by St Michael’s Church in Cornmarket Street and the Eastgate Hotel in High Street) and adjoining buildings were demolished and a survey of every property was completed so that rate collection could begin.

Gwynn’s design for a new Magdalen Bridge was approved, and a temporary diversion was set up via Rose Lane and across the River Cherwell meadows to Cowley Place before work began in 1772.

The bridge reopened to traffic in 1777 - with Oxford’s first ‘Keep Left’ sign erected a year later!

Oxford Mail: Stone pavements were provided, and the streets were pitched with pebbles like those which survive in Merton Street and Radcliffe Square. More than 300 street lights were installed.

The opening of the Covered Market in 1774 ended street markets - anyone setting up a stall or selling meat outside the market risked prosecution.

Other measures included removing obstructions in the streets, setting back frontages, widening paths and removing projecting signs, stones, timber and other obstacles.

Carfax Conduit, the monument at Carfax, was given to Lord Harcourt for his park at Nuneham Courtenay in 1787.

Householders were ordered to remove projecting porches, steps, bay windows and trees and install drainpipes. They were threatened with fines if they failed to clean the area outside their homes. Ditches were cleansed and covered, storm water drainage and sewage disposal improved and by 1800, Oxford was a much cleaner and healthier city. The local newspaper, Jackson’s Oxford Journal, lamented one inevitable result of wider roads - “the thoughtless rapidity with which carriages are frequently driven through the streets”.

The decisions taken by the Paving Commissioners between 1771 and 1801 are included in a new book published by the Oxford Historical Society and edited with an introduction by Malcolm Graham.

Copies are available for £50 through Boydell and Brewer -

https://boydellandbrewer.com/9780904107302/minutes-of-the-oxford-paving-commissioners-17711801/

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

You can also read his weekly Traffic and Transport newsletter.