What next for canal basin?

But it is the numerous illustrations at the back of the report which most powerfully reveal what was thrown away in the name of progress.

A drawing by William Westall in 1822 of Hythe Bridge Street crossing the canal and Castle Mill Stream could almost be a village scene in a corner of rural France. But mountains of coal soon dominate the scene at the Worcester Street Wharf.

Photographs show worse was to follow by the 1920s as the competition from the nearby railway reduced the area around the canal wharf into an empty and desolate industrial wasteland.

And if Lord Nuffield’s £1m gift prior to the Second World War gave Oxford the new college that bears his name, it did precious little improve the city’s waterways.

Nuffield College was built along New Road, but the fine Merchandise Wharf building of 1795 was demolished, the canal filled in and the bridge hole below Hythe Bridge Street blocked off.

The site of the Wharf was surfaced as a temporary measure to form a car park. But with a rise in building costs, Nuffield’s full vision was never realised, and a car park it has remained for over half a century.

While other major city centre sites like Gloucester Green and the railway station have been developed, the car park has survived, a significant money earner for Nuffield College and an affront to boat people and many Oxford citizens with an interest in local heritage.

The transformation, just across the road, of the nearby Oxford Castle and prison site into a heritage centre and hotel boosted those harbouring hopes that the site could again become an important water feature in the heart of the city.

The scheme to regenerate the wider West End of Oxford has offered grounds for further encouragement, by putting forward the idea of reconstructing the former basin to incorporate turning and mooring facilities for narrowboats.

Against this background Oxford Archaeology was commissioned to produce a study to examine the important features of the site to help determine how the area might be developed.

A similar study at Oxford Castle is viewed as having been crucial in opening the way to its eventual redevelopment into an award-winning heritage centre and public place.

And, crucially, Oxford Preservation Trust persuaded Nuffield College, along with Oxfordshire County Council, to join it in commissioning the ‘historic context study and conservation plan’, which also covers the nearby county council-owned Macclesfield House site, now up for sale.

Certainly, no one can any longer be in doubt about the site’s significance to the history of Oxford.

The Normans’ propensity for water engineering is shown in the construction of mill streams (Castle Mill) and bridges and causeways (Hythe Bridge) which transformed what had been a suburban quarter.

Mounds known as Jews Mount and Mount Pelham had once stood on a section of the car park. They are believed to have been siege mounds erected by King Stephen when besieging Matilda in the castle in 1142.

Trust director Debbie Dance believes the study will ultimately help shape the future of the site, effectively forcing any future developer to recognise its place in the history of the city.

She said: “Some people only think of the site as a car park. Others think of it only as a canal basin. But in fact it is much more than that.

“The redevelopment of Oxford Castle has revitalised this part of the city and made us all more conscious of the history beneath our feet. But the history of the castle extended beyond the Castle Mound. What this study reveals about the car park and the surrounding area is fascinating, with three clear historic strands involving the castle, the canal and the college.

Old maps, prints and photographs have been a fantastic resource and it has been interesting to see plans showing what was originally intended for Nuffield College there.

“Bringing the whole history of the site into one place has been a valuable exercise. It is also a crucial site in terms of the whole West End regeneration. What happens here is pivotal in linking the West End to the city centre. To people walking past the Worcester Street car park it looks featureless. But on one side there is an old bridge going past and the Castle Mill Stream flows along its western border.

“Whatever else happens, this could be opened up into a lovely walk way running from Park End Street to Hythe Bridge Street. And then it has the castle, the mound and Nuffield College as a backdrop.”

If nothing else, the study has succeeded in bringing all the key parties together, because, as the key landowners, Nuffield College and Oxfordshire County Council will ultimately determine its future.

But the preservation trust has no wish to see it continue to be used as a car park. What, however, about it becoming a canal basin again?

“It is an attractive idea,” said Ms Dance. “But we recognise that the site is owned by Nuffield College. We continue to have an open mind.

“In a way the study is almost a creative document. We can imagine Nuffield eventually giving it to an architect and them being inspired by what is in there to produce something that refers to its past.”

Nuffield College, however, has made clear that no plans for the site are in the pipeline. And it seems to have ruled out the idea of the site ever being returned to a canal terminal.

British Waterways last year produced plans for a Y-shaped terminal of about 1,000 sq m that would cover about 14 per cent of the site, with the rest used for restaurants, shops and housing.

But the bursar of Nuffield College, Gwilym Hughes, said: “We are obviously aware of the wishes of many people who would like to see the site used as it was a long time ago.”

The money brought in from the car park is significant, he said, and the site would only be developed if it were in the college’s financial interests to proceed with a scheme.

“If it were to be developed,” he said, “I can’t envisage a development based on the site being a functional part of the canal system. From my point of view it isn’t going to be returned to its historic use. It is not going back to being a canal basin. If and when it is developed, historic context will be taken into account and we are well aware that it is a riverside site.

“But there are other aspects here. The canal terminus was Y shaped. If it were restored, it would not be what people appear to want in terms of a modern canal basin. There was no great expanse of water.

“And I cannot see it being viable on that site. It is too valuable for the college in its current use. We have to be realistic about that. I don’t want to give the impression that things might be happening, which, in fact, they aren’t.”

Previously there has been speculation that Nuffield might be persuaded to part with the site by the offer of a land swap. First it was thought the college might be tempted by Oxford City Council property in George Street and more recently by Macclesfield House and land along Tidmarsh Lane.

But Mr Hughes made clear that such ideas were fanciful.

“No one has proposed that. The owners are not the people making these suggestions. We cannot make plans based on that kind of possibility. It is simply talk.”

But he did not entirely rule out an eventual new use for the site.

“We would want any development to be of the highest order and contribute to the regeneration of the West End. But there is no development plan on the table.”

Lib Dem city councillor Jean Fooks, who helped found the Friends of Oxford Canal Campaign, said she was bitterly disappointed with the college’s response. She pointed to the fact that canal basins had been successfully re-opened in other parts of the county and Oxford could ill afford to throw away an important opportunity.

“It would be good for tourism, provide a turning point for boats and would bring huge environmental benefits. But we want to carry on working with the college. The site shows Oxford’s history is not just about the university.”

James Clifton, regeneration manager for British Waterways, said it still hoped to see a canal basin reinstated and intends to fund a technical study next year to “identify technical problems and come up with solutions”.

Hugh Jaeger, of the Friends of Oxford Canal Campaign, said: “Nuffield is wrong to say that it has gone. It is simply buried.

“The college must know how water adds to the value of adjacent land. A terminal would not take up much of the site but greatly add to its worth. Why the college doesn’t want to include it in any redevelopment I don’t know.”

Neil Monaghan, county council head of property, said County Hall continued to see the site as crucial to a wider development plan, which will also see the transformation of Frideswide Square and the western approach to Oxford.

The study does provide one intriguing thought. Thirty years before the Oxford basin opened to traffic on New Year’s Day 1790 to the ringing of the St Thomas’s Church bells, there had been a plan to build the canal terminus in the University Parks.

Now that would have made a decent-sized car park.