Marston Road, Former Milham Ford School - Oxford Heritage Asset Register Nominations List

Location

Location of former Milham Ford School on Google Maps

Also known at Oxford Brookes University Marston Road Campus (Policy SP50 OLP 2036).

What is it?

Milham Ford School was a girls' secondary school in Oxford, located in the suburb of New Marston on Marston Road. It was founded in East Oxford in the 1890s and closed in 2003.

The new school was opened in 1939 on a 16-acre (6.5 ha) site on Marston Road between Harberton Mead and Jack Straw Lane. The original 1906 foundation stone was moved to the new site.

Milham Ford became a girls' grammar school in 1944. In 1948 it was described as a two-form entry school with 380 pupils, but with plans to move to three form entry. It had grown to 500 pupils by 1959 and 570 by the end of Miss Price's headship in 1966.

It became a girls' comprehensive upper school in September 1973 as part of the City's move to a three-tier comprehensive system, with pupils joining in the third form (Year 8). The school was closed following a return to a two-tier system and the majority of the site was sold in 2003.

The school was sold by Oxfordshire County Council to Oxford Brookes University in 2003 and the following year it started to be used by its School of Health Care and Social Science. The former playing field area in front of the school is leased by Oxford City Council and is now Milham Ford Nature Park. In 2006 Brookes sold part of the site to the south for housing; the new streets were named Mary Price Close and McCabe Place in memory of two former headmistresses.

Why is it interesting?

2.1. Historic Interest.

Oxford City Council’s first Girl’s Secondary School in the city. The school's origins lie in the 1890s when sisters Emma and Jane Moody started a private nursery school for boys and girls, located in their house in Iffley Road, East Oxford; it seems likely that this was their parent's family home at 7, Iffley Road. By 1898, the school had moved to a cottage, or group of cottages, in Cowley Place. It was from there that the new girls' school was launched, being named after the Milham Ford that crossed the River Cherwell nearby.

In 1923 Milham Ford School was sold to the City of Oxford - thus becoming its first Girls’ Secondary School, still charging fees, but with an increasing number of free scholarship places.

2.2. Architectural Interest.

Milham Ford is a fine landmark building on the Marston Road designed by the City Council’s architect, Douglas Murray.

The increasing number of students meant that Oxford City Council needed to look for a new site and in 1931, marker stakes appeared in farmer's fields to the east of Marston Road.

Building work proceeded slowly. Thus, it was not until 1939, that staff and students could move into the magnificent new Milham Ford School building on a spacious, sloping 16-acre (5.7 Ha) site bounded by Jack Straw’s Lane, Marston Road and Harberton Mead.

The imposing front entrance of the new building has a triangular stone portico containing a carved Oxford crest, with the ox and the ford central, and with an elephant in chains on the left opposed by a beaver in chains on the right. Four tall, elegant Cotswold limestone Ionic columns surround the front door. All the red brickwork of the original 1939 building has the attractive chevron or diamond pattern, adding to the striking symmetry of the frontage.

The Lombardy Poplars along the Marston Road were newly planted slim saplings in 1939.

The main building is laid out in a square, with classroom blocks to the north and south of the west facing frontage. The large, mahogany-panelled Hall completes the eastern side. The central enclosed lawn area is known as the Quadrangle. The original attractive neat lawns with rose borders and rockery were immaculately maintained, as were all the school grounds and pitches.

The gym was a building extending north from the hall, last used as the school dining room. The original use explains the sport observation gallery over the canteen serving area.

It is the original building that is of most architectural interest.

In the intervening years the school was extended as school numbers grew and educational demands changed

 A few months after the official opening in 1939, war was declared. Milham Ford School escaped the worst effects of the war, such as air-raids. There were air raid practices, involving evacuating all staff and students into the large underground concrete air raid shelter, which still exists behind the cycle sheds to the east of the school buildings. It is 45m long with very thick concrete walls and the internal chamber is zigzag in form (the better to resist bomb blast) with 7 galleries.

The grammar school years came to an end in 1973 with the beginning of the re-organisation of schools to the comprehensive system. There were 2 years of major building work (mostly finished by 1977) to remodel and extend the school premises to meet its new role. The extension to the north of the main building gave spacious room for Art, Craft and Needlework downstairs with Mathematics, Geography and Geology upstairs. The new Drama room and new History room were built out over the two toilet blocks to the south side.

Why is it locally valued?

3.1. Association. In its lifetime the school taught over 50,000 local girls and had many hundreds of teachers.

A significant proportion of the current local community remembers the school, either because of direct involvement as a pupil or a teacher or through association through a mother or other family member.

This was a local Oxford school at the heart of life in the city. Even though the building is no longer in use as a school, the building and its former life is still well remembered.

3.2. Illustration. The school is an important historical illustration of changes to the national education system after World War II. Since ownership by the City Council in 1923 the single sex school has been an important part of the state (local authority) education system, initially as a City run school. A timeline of important events is listed here, including significant interventions by two Education Secretaries. In 1947 it became a state grammar school (places awarded by the 11+ exam).

• 1950 saw the introduction of General Certificate of Education (GCE) ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels.
• 1972 end of grammar schools and introduction of state comprehensive upper schools (intake at year 8).
• School remained single sex through the intervention of the Secretary of State for Education (then Mrs Margaret Thatcher)
• 1974 local government re-organisation passed ownership from the City Council to the new Oxfordshire County Council.
• In the 1980s the role of Milham Ford in the education system of the city was questioned.
• In 1986 Oxfordshire County Council proposed to merge Oxford Boy’s School and Milham Ford on the Milham site. This was rejected by the Education Secretary (then Kenneth Baker)
• 1987 saw the introduction of Local Management of Schools (LMS).
• 1999 Oxfordshire County Council consulted on plans to reorganise the city schools to 5-11 primary schools and 11-19 secondaries.
• In 2000 this plan confirmed 5 large secondary schools. There was no single -sex option
• 2002 was the beginning of the last academic year for Milham Ford

Milham Headteachers and dates of service:

• 1890s-1904 Misses Emma and Jane Moody - founders
• 1905-1917 Miss Catherine Dodd
• 1917-1931 Miss Joan McCabe
• 1931-1949 Miss Evelyn Bailey
• 1949-1966 Miss Mary Price
• 1966- 1978 Miss Winifred Laws
• 1979-1986 Miss Alice Wakefield
• 1986-1987 Miss Janet Edwards
• 1987-1996 Miss Elizabeth Higgins
• 1996-1999 Mrs Gloria Walker
• 1999- Mrs Anne Peterson

3.3. Evidence. As a substantial school on this site for much of the 19th century it is an important resource for understanding the history of Marston and the wider community. It predates much of the housing that surrounds it. “The opening (of Milham Ford school) was on March 8th 1939, by H R H Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone. After the opening and speeches, the 300 girls, conspicuous in neat uniform with white shoes, lined the drive on either side, cheering the royal car as it departed with the Princess inside. The new building was in an unaccustomed rural setting, as was observed by the Headmistress, Evelyn Bailey, writing in the school magazine for 1939: ‘I shall never forget the buttercup fields that lay spread out at our feet this year. For weeks they lay like a golden flood that crept up to the edges of our playing fields: they shone like sunlight, even when the skies are grey. I think you must have all delighted in them’ These buttercup fields subsequently disappeared under the housing estate built along the Marston Road, and the only places a ‘golden flood’ of buttercups can still be seen are in Marston meadows near the river and in Milham’s own grounds, where the ‘meadow’ adjacent to Harberton Mead, contains a precious remnant of these ancient un-improved pastures.” Even though the school building is now owned by Oxford Brookes University for its School of Health Care and Social Science, the school playing fields are leased from Oxfordshire County Council by Oxford City Council and retained as public open space. This is called the Milham Ford Nature Park, the local community’s well-used and valued open space.

3.4. Aesthetics. The Milham Ford building is off-set by the nature park in the foreground. It makes a very significant contribution to the character of Marston, both physically as an important landmark building and historically as one of the earlier buildings in the local areas growth. A local resident notes: "The school sits above the park, rather like a stately home dominates its grounds, and so it can be viewed and appreciated by the maximum number of people. It is unusual in the local area in the way it stands out. People in the community don’t have to seek it out. Thus its contribution to, and impact on, the environment is immediate."

3.5. Communal. It is indeed important to the identity, cohesion, memory and ongoing life of the community.

3.6. How is it valued locally. Locally the view is that it is important to retain the original 1939 Milham Ford building. Oxford Brookes University Marston Road Campus (Policy SP 50 OLP 2036) is one of three East Marston sites that have been highlighted for future development in the emerging Oxford Local Plan 2040. The local community acknowledges that the current owner of Milham Ford, Oxford Brookes University, has indicated that it may plan to re-locate the educational use of the building to its main Gypsy Lane Campus. In March 2023 Oxford City Council held a Marston Road Design Workshop and invited participants from the local community, local amenity and resident groups. The workshop was designed and facilitated by Design South East and Oxford City Council with the aim of gathering local knowledge, experience and aspirations to support the drafting of development policies in the Oxford Local Plan 2040. This workshop was strongly of the view that the original 1939 Milham Ford building should be retained in any development of the site. “1. The frontage and quad of the existing building should be retained. These parts of the existing building were admired both for their aesthetic qualities and contribution to biodiversity (in the case of the quad) and it was felt they should be retained. The buildings and spaces to the rear of the site were considered to be more appropriate for any redevelopment.”

What makes its local significance special?

4.1 Age. The arrival of the new Oxford City Council school in 1939 was an important milestone on the development of the local area.

4.2 Rarity. It is the only girls school designed and built by Oxford City Council, including the earlier city corporation.

4.3 Integrity. Externally the building is complete and to all intents and purposes original.

4.4 Group Value. It originally had its own playing fields, now the Milham Ford Nature Park. Visually together these retain a close aesthetic and communal association

 4.5 Oxford’s identity. Milham Ford is an imposing building with the nature park providing it with an open foreground. The building is situated on a rise in the land associated with the lower slopes of Headington Hill. As a result, this landmark building is clearly seen in near views to all passing on the Marston Road. It is also visible from more distant views, especially from high points in the City centre, such as St Mary’s tower, the University Church. 8 4.6 Other. The evidence above has emphasised the importance of the building to the local community. It has also emphasised the historic significance of the building to changes in state education in the city and the key role played by Oxford City Council in this.

Conclusion

This application is for inclusion of the 1939 original Milham Ford School building (currently part of the Oxford Brookes University Marston Road Campus) in the Oxford Heritage Asset Register. The school, designed and built by Oxford City Council, is both historically and architecturally of significant value not just to the local community but more widely in Oxford. The site is highlighted for future development in the emerging Oxford Local Plan 2040. Its inclusion in the OHAR will signal that the original 1939 building should be retained and ensure a viable and beneficial use for this important Oxford asset.

Thanks are due to Dr Judith Webb for of much of the detail in this nomination which has come from: The History of Milham Ford School. Edited by Dr Judith Webb (Biology teacher at Milham since 1987, Staff Governor and worker for wildlife in the Milham Nature Park grounds)