Westgate Centre, Oxford, and the homes that used to be there

The boards have gone up at the junction of Preachers Lane and Blackfriars Road, near the pedestrian crossing over Thames Street.

They highlight the rich history of St Ebbe’s, particularly the southern part of the parish, which is known as the Friars. Find out how a crowded and lively suburb developed over the 19th and 20th centuries; what industries, shops and businesses flourished here; and how the area came to look as it does today.

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The boards have been funded by Oxford City Council, and the information was researched and compiled by local historian Liz Woolley, with help from former and current St Ebbe’s residents.

The boards were the idea of former city councillor leader Bob Price and were funded by city councillor Marie Tidball.

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Mr Price said: “It seemed to Marie and I that the history of St Ebbes is in danger of receding into distant memories as the people who lived there before the clearance and then returned, reach the end of their lives. So we asked Liz to create story boards about the old St Ebbes area, and the important part that it played in the development of the city in the Victorian period - especially the gasworks and the other workplaces.”

Ms Woolley said: “St Ebbes is an area that has a very rich history which touches on Oxford’s industrial development.

“It was a community that was very close-knit and relocated in quite a short space of time in the postwar period.”

St Ebbes in 1954

Ms Woolley said the community was torn down to make way for the Westgate Centre in the 1960s.

She added: “People who lived there are now in their eighties or nineties but they still have a very strong sense of identity that they come from St Ebbes.

“We wanted to capture some of that with these boards before the area goes out of people’s minds.”

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Ms Woolley said the St Ebbes area remained in a state of flux.

She added: “St Ebbes was cleared to make way for the first Westgate Centre and there has been more change for the new Westgate Centre. But it’s still not an area that is done and dusted - there are more changes to come with the Oxpens development.”

It seemed to Marie and I that the history of St Ebbes is in danger of receding into distant memories as the people who lived there before the clearance and then returned, reach the end of their lives. So we asked Liz to create story boards about the old St Ebbes area, and the important part that it played in the development of the city in the Victorian period - especially the gasworks and the other workplaces.

In recent years there have been a number of projects to try to ensure that the community of St Ebbes is not forgotten. One of these was the Urbansuburban history project in 2016.

The Urbansuburban book, researched by historian Rachel Barbaresi, is full of colour photographs and real stories of the neighbourhood of St Ebbes, torn down in the 1960s to make way for the Westgate shopping centre.

Liz Woolley consulted Ms Barbaresi for the latest project. With Urbansuburban, dozens of former residents contributed pictures and memories and joined a launch party at Oxford Town Hall. One of them was Lois East who grew up in St Ebbes and revealed she did not have a bathroom. She recalled going to the public baths in Paradise Square just to wash.

“You would sit in the tub and shout ‘more hot!’ and ‘more cold!’ to people outside,” she said.

The book is at the Museum of Oxford.