Oxpens Road

View northwest along Oxpens Road
Interactive map of Oxpens Road
Length	0.3 mi (0.48 km)
Postal code	OX1 1
Coordinates	51°44′59″N1°15′58″W / 51.74972°N 1.26611°W /51.74972; -1.26611
northwest end	Hollybush Row
southeast end	Thames Street

Oxpens Road is a road in centralOxford,England, linking west and south Oxford.^[1] It is named after the marshy area ofOxpens,^[2] next to one of the branches of theRiver Thames in Oxford. It forms part of theA420 road.

To the northwest, Oxpens Road becomesHollybush Row, meeting atFrideswide Square, forming the major junction of theBotley Road,Park End Street andHythe Bridge Street near theSaïd Business School andOxford railway station (to the west of the city centre). To the southeast it becomesThames Street, just north of theRiver Thames, and meets the junction with the south end ofSt Aldates nearChrist Church Meadow (to the south of the city centre). It forms part of an innerring road for the southwest part of the centre of Oxford.

Halfway along is theOxford Ice Rink, a distinctive 1984 building byNicholas Grimshaw,^[2] which is the home of theOxford City Stars ice hockey team. One of the campuses of theCity of Oxford College is located here on the north side. The road crosses the southern end of theCastle Mill Stream just before it reaches the River Thames.

Oxpens Road also provides access to majorcar parks for the centre of Oxford, including theWestgate Shopping Centre. A redeveloped and greatly expanded shopping centre opened in 2017, but there have been concerns over the imposing and largely windowless wall at the southwest of the redevelopment on Oxpens Road by conservationists, including theOxford Civic Society.^[3]

Before 1850, Oxpens Road was known asNun's Walk. This area used to be the location of agasworks by the river.^[4]

The locality was one of the poorer quarters of central Oxford. In the 1950s and 1960s there was large-scale clearance of the area, known asThe Oxpens. Many residents were moved toBlackbird Leys, an estate consisting largely ofcouncil housing on the outskirts of southeast Oxford and close toMorris Motors Limited inCowley, which provided employment. The area around Oxpens was almost entirely redeveloped during the second half of the 20th century.

Close to Oxpens Road on St Thomas Street was theMorrells Brewery (aka The Lion Brewery), near the Castle Mill Stream, which closed in 1998.^[5]

• 
  View southeast along Oxpens Road.
• 
  View northwest along Oxpens Road.
• 
  Oxford Ice Rink on Oxpens Road.^[2]
• 
  View down Hollybush Row towards Oxpens Road.
• 
  Post office building on Oxpens Road.

• St Ebbes

• Oxford Directory information
• Oxford Cherwell Valley College

• Streets in Oxford

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from December 2016
• Use British English from December 2016
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• Articles with OS grid coordinates
• Pages using the Kartographer extension