Police are investigating an arson attack on an Oxford University sports pavilion.

Fifteen firefighters were called to The Queen's College sports pavilion, off Abingdon Road, at 9.45pm on Saturday.

They discovered a fire in the roof of the pavilion, which is on land opposite Newton Road.

Firefighters spent an hour tackling the blaze, and managed to prevent it spreading to the rest of the building.

Peter Graham, a spokesman for Oxfordshire Fire Service's fire investigation team, said: "The damage has been confined largely to the roof. It probably took about an hour to fight the fire, but the cause of the blaze will take a lot longer to investigate. We are now liaising with the police."

Adam Fisher, a spokesman for Thames Valley Police, confirmed that the fire was being treated as suspicious and added that scenes of crime officers were examining the area yesterday.

Police are not ruling out the possibility that animal rights activists are responsible for the attack as part of the campaign against the building of the new animal testing laboratory in South Parks Road.