Between July 2019 and this March the Bodleian put on a major map exhibition, Talking Maps, curated by Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea. With the World now spinning on a different axis we thought it would be good to relive some of the exhibition highlights and for the next few months staff will pick personal favourites to include in our Map Department blog.

It seems appropriate (or cruel, depending on whether your glass is half full or half empty) considering the lockdown to start with a map which deals with going to the pub. The Drink Map of Oxford is one of the most popular maps we have, it features in a lot of ‘show and tells’ map staff put on and was a popular subject during our lunch talks when the exhibition was on.

Drink map of Oxford 1883. C17:70 Oxford (7)

Over a simple skeleton plan published in 1883 the location of 319 pubs, breweries, beer houses and other licensed premises are shown using four different red symbols. Most pubs are on the main streets of the city (note how many are on the High Street for instance), while the breweries are close to the castle where there is easy access to water. Beer houses are where residents have applied for a licence to sell alcohol out of their houses to supplement income and are usually on side and residential roads, while other licensed premises are the Wine Merchants and groceries selling to the colleges and the public.

There are some intriguing aspects to this map. The first is the lack of University buildings shown, making this the only one of over 300 maps of the city held at the Bodleian with no hint of a University. There are a couple of reasons for this. Being a skeleton plan buildings aren’t included to keep the map as simple as possible (the railway is there as it is an important part of the city make-up, and also, more importantly, there is a pub in the terminal building as well). The second reason is that students weren’t allowed into the city pubs. Colleges would have had their own bars and some even brewed their own beers. Another aspect to the Drink Map is the wonderful irony in something which shows just where you can get a drink in Oxford but which is published by one a number of Temperance Societies in the city at the time, the rather grandly named Oxfordshire Band of Hope and Temperance Union. Temperance Societies were concerned about the problems alcohol was causing for the Working Class, causing problems such as poverty, crime, the breakdown of the family and church attendance. Text on the back mentions the effect of all this drinking in such a renowned city, ‘drunkenness abounds in our midst, and its attendant evils, crime and pauperism, are ever calling our attention. Can this be wondered at seeing we have up to three hundred places licensed by law for the sale of strong drink?’  The text goes on to make two claims about the city that don’t quite stand up too much investigation. The first is that the city is so overpopulated with drinking establishments that it has 50% more than any other comparable town. While there certainly is a lot in Oxford compared to now there was a lot everywhere. Post Office directories for towns such as Reading show similar numbers. The second claim is that the city magistrates come from the middle and upper class residents who tended to live in the north of the city, and while they were happy to give licences to places in the poor areas aren’t so keen to do so closer to home, hence the disparity between the north and other parts of the city on the map. Like the comparison with other towns this accusation doesn’t stand up when you use the directories. Kelly’s Post Office Directory for Oxford 1883 lists the names and addresses of the 16 magistrates in office for that year, with only a few living in the north of the city. Some magistrates live on the High Street while one even lives next to a beer house in St Clements. What is closer to the truth about the lack of pubs in North Oxford both then and now is that St Johns College owed most of the land and they were putting restrictions in place on the use of land in sale and leasing agreements which included the sale of alcohol.

There is an important companion to the Drink map that makes an equally strong social statement about Victorian Oxford. Dr. Acland’s map of major cholera outbreaks in 1832, 1849 and 1854 to

Map of Oxford to illustrate Dr. Acland’s memoir of cholera in Oxford in 1854… 1854. C17:70 Oxford (15)

accompany a report in 1854 is one of the earliest disease maps published in England. The map shows areas of poor or no drainage, the contaminated sections of river and the individual cases of outbreak and it is the areas of poor drainage that draw comparison with the Drink Map. The areas that feature strongest on the one map, the over-crowded working class districts of Jericho, St Ebbes, St Clements and Osney Island which are all heavily overlaid with red symbols are the same areas shaded to show areas of poor and no sanitation and drainage on the other.

The St. Ebbes area on both the Drink and Cholera maps. Most of this area has been redeveloped and is now the Westgate Shopping Centre.

These are two important maps of the history of the city, coming at a time when the population had grown considerably from the late 1790’s onward’s with the arrival of the canal, the move out of countryside by agricultural labourers following enclosure and the coming of the railway. This increase in population put pressure on the working-class areas with the inevitable problems highlighted in both maps; disease, poor housing, poor sanitation and over-crowding.

These are also wonderful maps full-stop. The cholera plots an illness which was for the time still hard to treat in a city using as their main source contaminated river water while the Drink Map is a serious attempt to highlight an important problem but now, without the social implications involved, looks like a Victorian version of a pub guide.

Driving in and around Oxford has long been an inconvenient experience. Various measures have been introduced over the years; blocking off access to some roads, restricting traffic on others. It is perhaps fortunate that the most ambitious of post-war planning never took place, considering the destruction that would have been caused to some of the prettiest parts of the city. Oxford Replanned was a scheme devised by Thomas Sharp, a planning consultant to the City Council, after the 1939-45 war. Sharp was appointed following work in a number of areas destroyed or damaged during the Blitz. Designed to take traffic away from the High Street by building new roads to the south of Merton College through Christ Church Meadow and then linking up with the Botley Road via a new layout of roads and squares between Queens Street and the Railway Station, the scheme was controversial from the start, something that Sharp himself predicted. In his book ‘Oxford Replanned’ Sharp states in the introduction ‘The task has proved to be an onerous one, and now it is completed I cannot with certainty expect that the result will be generally acceptable even in its main features, let alone in all its details. indeed I know very well that some of the suggestions I make will rouse bitter opposition in some quarters’. The Oxford Times were keen supporters of the plans, even though they could see the reaction the plans would cause, “further outlook stormy”, was their prediction as early as February 1948.

Overview of the city, from ‘Oxford Replanned’, 2479115 d.77.

Sharp passionately believed that radical steps needed to be taken to relieve the pressure on the High Street, which would bring ‘…some peace back into the old heart of the city’. To achieve this he set out a plan that involved  knocking down the large building belonging to Magdalen School between Cowley Place and the River, and building a bridge over the Cherwell at an angle to

Extract from a map showing proposed new bridge and road layout from the Plain (R) C17:70 Oxford (246)

Magdalen bridge which would take a new road from the Plain over the river and through Merton Field and Christ Church Meadow. This would then link up with a square south of Christ Church and then leading onto the Railway Station and Botley Road. For Sharp there were two main benefits to this scheme, the easing of traffic through the High already mentioned and the clearing of the slum areas around the castle. Sharp also envisaged a new building programme, with schools, council buildings and housing centred around public squares where previously there were slums and narrow streets.

Plan from ‘Oxford Replanned’ showing the proposed new road linking the plain to the square by Christ Church

As can be imagined Sharp’s plans were met with some opposition, though many recognized the need to improve the traffic issues that were apparent even then. Sharp appeared at a number of meetings throughout 1948 as his book was published and an exhibition of the proposals was held in the City. Most memorable was the an Oxford Union debate on the 4th of March, which was disrupted by the letting off of smoke bombs, though this seems to have been a student prank than any protest as a motion to support the plan was carried 173 votes to 50.

The new proposed layout overprinted onto an Ordnance Survey 6″ map of the city. (R) C17:70 Oxford (246).  As can be seen in this map Sharp proposed major changes to the layout of the city to the north of the High Street as well as the south.

Sharp’s plans updated those of Lawrence Dale, who published a book in 1944 called ‘Towards a plan for Oxford City’. Like Sharp Dale wanted to move traffic away from the High Street, though Dale doesn’t seem to have any connection with the Council or planning in general. His book is a mixture of strange motives, his plans seem to have been born out of frustration at an attempt to fly a kite on Christ Church meadow in 1942 thwarted by a notice at the entrance banning beggars, those poorly dressed and those flying kites from entry, while amongst his more outlandish ideas is the moving of the University out of Oxford to the estate at Wytham, leaving the college buildings to tourists and soldiers on leave or wounded from fighting in the war. As can be seen from a plan made by Dale his road goes nearer the river than Sharp’s proposals.

Lawrence Dale’s map from 1942 showing his proposed layout of a road over the meadows. (R) C17:70 Oxford (246)

The pictures shown throughout this blog are a mixture of maps and plans that were made for the production of a book written by Sharp in 1948 that sets out his proposals, ‘Oxford Replanned’. This book is a treasure trove of old photographs, plans and pictures and writings both of the city as it was immediately post-war and of how it could be if Sharp’s proposals were accepted. The maps and plans are in a number of different formats and media, and have recently undergone valuable conservation work, as some of the material, particularly the dyeline paper mapping and heavily painted plans, were not that stable.

The proposed square linking the new road from the Plain with the Railway Station, from ‘Oxford Replanned’.

Ultimately Sharp’s plans were rejected. Who’s to say we’re better off now without them? People can walk in the beautiful grounds of Christ Church and Merton unimpeded by road traffic, fumes and noise but at the same time the High Street is often clogged with traffic and the infrastructure of the road suffers from the traffic on it.

Page from ‘Oxford Replanned’ showing an idealistic view of the proposed road going through Christ Church Meadow.

[Maps from] Oxford Replanned,  1942-1956. A set of 19 maps, plans and prints, (R) C17:0 Oxford (246)

Many Bodleian Library staff commute by bicycle and a number are keen cyclists, so the arrival of a new edition of the Oxford Bus & Cycle Map was greeted with enthusiasm in the Map Room, especially the side of it showing cycle routes. The map was produced by Richard Mann of Transport Paradise, whose site offers advice on improving urban transport with examples from Oxford and elsewhere. The cycle map is an innovative product in that it attempts to show two complete cycle networks. A quieter one (suitable for family and leisure cycling) is shown in blue, with routes through quiet streets or away from the roads altogether, through parks and beside the river. Meanwhile the main cycle commuter routes are shown in red; a complete, joined up network, with dotted lines to identify those parts of it where cycle provision is poorer, rather than a patchy network of good cycle routes – a pragmatic approach, since the cyclist will have to find a way even when it is less than ideal. An extract showing the city centre is shown below.

The clever design of the bus map on the reverse does a good job of unscrambling Oxford’s sometimes confusing bus route network. Four colours – red, blue, green and yellow – are used to group the main routes, to make it easier to follow them visually through the concentration of routes in the city centre. The frequency of services is indicated by solid, dashed or dotted lines.

Oxford’s centre is constantly busy, thronged with crowds of students, tourists and locals. Travelling into it by car is slow and parking is expensive. Use this map instead!

Oxford bus & cycle map. Oxford: Transport Paradise, 2015. C17:70 Oxford (249)