Alexandra Park Improvement
Unless you are a tennis player you may not be aware of the existence of Alexandra Park which lies between Middle Way and Woodstock Road, just a block from Summertown’s shops.
Measuring 4 acres it is comparatively small but its historic and recreational value more than makes up for its lack of size. It is Oxford’s oldest public park providing precious green space for Summertown’s residents, workers and visitors.
The SuStM Neighbourhood Plan’s policy for Alexandra Park envisages an aesthetically pleasing, recreational and relaxing place for people of all ages in the heart of Summertown.
Historic Origins
May 2025 will mark the park’s 100th anniversary. The Wiblin family, acclaimed pork butchers and sausage makers, sold the pig pasture located behind their “Northern House” residence in South Parade to Oxford City Council in 1925. The pasture became Oxford’s first recreational park, and was named after King Edward VII’s wife, Alexandra, who died that year. As the city grew the council created parks to compensate for the loss of open space due to urbanization. A park at Bury Knowle, Headington soon followed in 1932 and Florence Park and Rosehill in 1934.
From the outset the park provided space for soccer, ladies’ hockey, basketball and tennis. Tennis became the major sport and its six hard and twelve public grass courts dominated the park such that the area became known as Alexandra Courts. On the Park’s southern boundary, land was allocated for war time use during WWII.
Recent History
More recently, Premier Tennis and Norham Gardens Lawn Tennis Club (NGLTC ) began to manage the courts by agreement with Oxford City Council (OCC) and pay an annual fee for use of the courts at specified times.
A combination of organizations - civic, community and volunteer- have worked together to develop and maintain the quality of the courts. The other major sport facility in the park is the basketball court, which is the site of competitive tournaments during the summer.
With the passage of time, the park and its surroundings have altered considerably. The driveway serving the back of Northern House has become a car park. The number of grass courts has been reduced to six. There is no longer a refreshment kiosk. Its boundaries have been nibbled away by the business centre (Cochrane Centre, formerly Oliver and Gurdens cake factory) together with infill housing on the eastern boundary that has blocked the visual connection with Middle Way. Most recently there have been intrusive interventions to the park’s entrance on Middle Way and the sale of the public toilet on the park’s western edge in 2018. The park has been neglected in recent years due to the Council’s budgetary constraints. The effect of long-term national economic and political issues on the public realm can be seen in the decline of our local park’s buildings, surfacing, facilities and lack of planting, with considerable land allocated to car parking.
New Directions & Aims
In 2011, the UK government passed a Localism Act, which empowered people to respond to the decline of public spaces. In 2019, following many months of work and consultation by local volunteers, the SuStM Neighbourhood Plan was adopted, emphasizing the role of local views in the Planning and Development policy for our area. The SuStM Neighbourhood Forum became the constituted assembly for collating and disseminating views of residents. Small working groups have been formed within it to respond directly to particular areas of concern and initiation of projects. In the case of Alexandra Park, a small group of six volunteers formed the Alexandra Park Working (APWG) for planning and fund-raising to address these concerns, with the aim of renovating and improving the Park. Despite spatially constricting interventions and financial constraints, there is now the opportunity to create a green oasis, which needs recognition and care to ensure its sustainability for public enjoyment.
The Summertown & St. Margaret’s Neighbourhood Plan of 2019 noted: ‘Alexandra Park. . . is dominated by tennis courts and by car parking on the southern edge. It has a utilitarian feel to it; it has no paths and few flower beds, shrubs or trees. There are no benches where people can sit and relax; it is a park only in name. It is clear from consultations carried out by the City Council that local residents would value the area more if it was made generally more user-friendly’. (p.16). The Summertown & St. Margaret’s Neighbourhood Plan of 2019 noted: ‘Alexandra Park. . . is dominated by tennis courts and by car parking on the southern edge. It has a utilitarian feel to it; it has no paths and few flower beds, shrubs or trees. There are no benches where people can sit and relax; it is a park only in name. It is clear from consultations carried out by the City Council that local residents would value the area more if it was made generally more user-friendly’. (p.16)
Accessing The Park
The park can be accessed by pedestrians and cyclists from Middle Way and Woodstock Road. The former also gives vehicular access to public parking with 27 car parking spaces. Bollards prevent a vehicular through route. Its existing amenities encompass:
• 12 tennis courts: 6 hard courts and 6 grass courts (the only public grass courts in the city);
• an open grass field with 2 picnic tables;
• a children’s playground including : large sandpit for toddlers, park bench, a slide, 4 swings, a fort-like climbing fixture, a see-saw, a hammock, and a rotating circle, a climbing frame, a picnic table and 2 benches; and
• a basketball court with two spectator bench seats.
Current Park Improvement Plans
In 2019, following many months of hard work by local volunteer residents and City Council officers, the SuStM Neighbourhood Plan was completed and approved. A key policy in the SuStM plan covers Alexandra Park, setting out the vision for a small, aesthetically pleasing recreational green space catering to the felt needs of people of all ages. Recognizing that Alexandra Park is a valuable asset to the area, our aim is to encourage park users not only to pursue recreation but to find a place for reflection, socializing, enjoying fresh air and appreciating nature as the seasons change.
Our key development objectives have included:
creating a distinctive gateway to the park;
improving the children’s park area with picnic tables and safety surfacing under the swings.
removing conflict between cars and pedestrians and increasing pedestrian safety;
creating a new line of trees and an evergreen hedge between the driveway and the field;
enhancing park visitors’ walking experience and awareness of nature with an avenue of trees;
adding seats for relaxation along the tree-lined avenue;
securing and greening the boundaries and encouraging planting bio-diversity;
improving the northern perimeter path used by dog-walkers with wildflower planting.
APWG has successfully gained funds from the first round of CIL applications. In January 2020 the Council planted six trees to begin a line for The Avenue. It also supplied and installed two picnic tables in the green field and a picnic table in the children’s play area. Bulbs funded by the Tennis Club were planted between the new trees by APWG.
Further funds have been obtained for resurfacing to eliminate muddy patches and badly worn ground at the entrance and within the children’s play area, at the entrance to the grass field, as well as for the planting of a further five trees to complete the line of trees as well as installation of 3 traditional park seats; relocation of the unsightly green waste bin; surface improvements in heavily used muddy areas; and safety surfacing under the swings.
Towards realizing the Alexandra Park Planning Vision
The projects illustrated in the Vision for the Park depicted below were exhibited in the Summertown Library. Our meeting with residents of Charles Ponsonby House was a great success with eager offers of help with planting the Sensory Garden. It’s a pleasure to report that Oxford University’s Wytham Woods team have already planted five apple trees and will be sowing wild flowers and planting hedges in the autumn.
1. View across field with planting to screen courts & buildings
2. A view of the entrance to The Field
3. New trees will create a shaded avenue
4. A Snack Shop to serve teas, cakes & ice cream
5. Restored pedestrian entrance with archway to welcome all
6. Bakers Walk with trees and shrubs to screen buildings
We have been consulting with the Tennis Club and the City’s Estates Department for the possibility of a perimeter path around the Park and much needed public toilets. The latest meeting in the Park with local neighbours was constructive with issues raised for detailed consideration of the creation of ‘Friends of Alexandra Park’. Already we have a neighbourhood volunteer group who has been watering the sensory garden plants during the drought conditions of summer 2025.
Subsequent Sensory Garden Plan
The above plan has evolved from the original ‘Vision’ designed by Geoffrey Randell for the Forum. It is less ambitious yet retains the qualities to achieve the objectives and rationale which informed the original. Projects are undertaken by the Council’s Green and Blue Spaces Department within the framework defined by the Plan you see before you. It is funded mainly by money allocated from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and by grants and donations. The community is also grateful to the Wytham Woods team for their help in the Sensory Garden and with His Dark Materials tribute.
Recent presentations of the Alexandra Park plans to nearby residents
Note: Watercolour paintings by Geoffrey Randell, APWG member.
Community Participation
Celebrating Alexandra Parks’ Centenary, Early Summer 2025
Alexandra Park’s 100th anniversary festivities, celebrated by 70 local residents on the 7th of June, was officiated by Oxford’s new Lord Mayor, Louise Upton. In her first ribbon-cutting assignment, she wielded the scissors deftly at the portal of an imaginatively designed sensory garden about to be planted with garden features. Geoffrey Randall, the garden designer, in association with Henk van Es originated the sensory garden plan. The festivities began with a rousing music performed by St. Edwards’ School brass band, followed by the arrival of James Fry, the County Counsellor for Summertown and Walton Manor who gave the keynote address, drawing attention to how the expanding connectivity of Banbury and Woodstock Roads with Marston Ferry Road has altered the context in which Alexandra Park exists.
Towards the end of the festivities, rain arrived, but armed with umbrellas, most of those in attendance were undeterred. The day ended with many taking advantage of a guided tour of ‘old Summertown’ by the historian, Gareth Winrow. Gareth and Deborah Bryceson edited a collection of articles entitled Suburban Evolution of Summertown: Living in the Shadow of Oxford. The Summertown and St. Margaret’s Neighbourhood Forum (SUSTM) sponsored the event and several of its members contributed chapters to that book (Available for purchase on Amazon.co.uk).
‘Budding artists celebrating springtime’
Spring time is a special time in Alexandra Park, and even more special and spectacularly cheerful in 2022 when students painted a mural on the playground wall. Local volunteer groups of primary school-aged children from Cutteslowe Primary School, Dragon School, Northern House Academy and the 1st Wolvercote Brownies, artistically brandishing paint brushes, animated the playground. Never mind Van Gogh in Provence. These Summertown kids’ imaginative designs of intrepid pollinating insects, mega-sized blooming flowers, creepy crawlers, and rainbow arches, transformed the children’s playground.
Alexandra Park fifth site for Wytham Woods’ pollinator project thanks to CIL funding
Dr Kim Polgreen (Linacre, 1989), currently the inaugural Youth Educator in Residence at Wytham Woods, is working with four Oxford schools towards a ‘pollinator project’ called ‘Plan Bee’, that will see students growing species of plant that will attract and sustain wild pollinators such as bumble bees, wasps, moths and flies, some of them in decline.
The fifth site for the project is located at Summertown’s Alexandra Park, and was made possible by CIL funding
Volunteer for The Alexandra Park Project
We need volunteers with various skills, especially people who love gardening, as well as visionary artists, designers and many more, willing to contribute to making a visit to Alexandra Park a creative and fun experience for people of all ages. Please let us know if you would like to volunteer and in what capacity? Please let us know if you would like to volunteer and in what capacity by completing the form below, or emailing Colin McDiarmid, email: cmcd@stats.ox.ac.uk.
Membership and Terms of Reference of the Working Group will shortly be made available here.