Oxford Then and Now (From The Oxford Times)

Oxford Then and Now

1:10pm Tuesday 7th February 2012 in Music / Books By Maggie Hartford

Commercial redevelopment was already towering over the 17th-century heart of Oxford by 1907, as demonstrated in Oxford Then and Now.

In the book by Malcolm Graham and Lawrence Waters, a picture by renowned photographer Henry Taunt shows the three-gabled facade of Grimbly Hughes’s high-class grocery store, built in 1864, which dwarfed the timber-framed 17th-century front of Twining’s grocery shop next door.

Taunt’s picture is juxtaposed with a modern photograph by Lawrence Waters, with Barclays Bank occupying a 1923 building that replaced Twining’s, while a modern glass-and-concrete frontage, now McDonald’s, replaced Grimbly Hughes in 1961 to make way for Littlewoods, according to the authors.

It follows the pattern of a similar book about Banbury, contrasting the old photographs with new ones by railway enthusiast Mr Waters — taken, where possible, from the same angle.

It’s a good recipe, and provides several fascinating visual examples of how things have changed. Local historian Malcolm Graham is given comparatively little space, but his words are carefully chosen to provide context.