North Oxford - Tanis Hinchcliffe

North Oxford is one of the best known and most widely admired Victorian suburbs in Britain. Developed by St. John's College in the years after 1850 to provide accommodation for the rapidly expanding middle class in the city, the North Oxford estate was also a successful speculative development of farmland into urban fabric and is one of the main reasons why St. John's is now one of Oxford University's wealthiest colleges.;In this study of St. John's North Oxford estate, Tanis Hinchcliffe provides a social and architectural history of this landmark area. Hinchcliffe examines the distinctive and picturesque architecture of the North Oxford homes, which were designed by some of the leading architects of the Victorian era - J.J. Stevenson, R.W. Edis, T.E. Collcutt and others - as well as by lesser-known but important local architects. She describes the complex network of developers, builders, and financiers that was necessary to bring the estate into being, and tells of the college's struggles to ensure its quality in the face of financial collapses and the vicissitudes of the local housing market. And she looks at the inhabitants of the estate, members of the professional middle class whose social, religious, and educational views did not always necessarily fit into the traditional life of the Oxford colleges. Continuing her study up until 1979, Hinchcliffe also provides some interesting observations on the fate of Victorian suburbs and the efforts that have been made to maintain their character over time.;Illustrated with contemporary and modern photographs and with building plans, this book is aimed at anyone interested in Oxford and its environs, or in the architectural or social history of Victorian England.