Blackhall Road is a road running betweenKeble Road to the north andMuseum Road to the south in centralOxford,England, dating from the late 19th century.[1] It is named after Black Hall, dating from at least 1519, fronting ontoSt Giles', and now part ofSt John's College.[2] Houses in the road were leased by St John's College in 1865–75.[3]
Keble College occupies the entire east side of the road, including theO'Reilly Theatre. In the 1970s, the architectsAhrends, Burton and Koralek designed yellow brick buildings on the southern part of Blackhall Road.[4] These include the "Elephant House" at the southern end, nicknamed due to its resemblance to the elephant house atLondon Zoo.[5]
At the southern end on the west side are houses owned bySt John's College.[6] At the northern end to the west is the Department of Statistics of theUniversity of Oxford, until 2013 theMathematical Institute.
The historianJ. K. Fotheringham (1874–1936), an expert on ancient astronomy and chronology, and Fellow ofMagdalen College, lived at 6 Blackhall Road.[7] The classical historianAbel Hendy Jones Greenidge lived at 4 Blackhall Road. The poet and art criticHasan Shahid Suhrawardy (1890–1965), an associate of the writerD. H. Lawrence, also lived in the road when they met in 1915.[8]
The road includes one of the longest lasting and still extant pieces of outdoorgraffiti in Oxford. On a brick wall forming part ofKeble College, opposite the Department of Statistics building, are two largedinosaurs in white and blue paint. The caption"REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DINOSAUR!" is next to the white dinosaur. By the blue dinosaur, perhaps intended to resemble an alligator, is a riposte"I DID, AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME".
It is thought that the white graffiti, the earlier of the two, was the work of delegates at the Drapers' Conference at Keble in the early 1970s and was a reply to the students of Keble's neighbourSt John's College who had formed the St John’s Destroy Keble Society.[9] An alternative version suggests that students fromWadham andSomerville Colleges were responsible.[10] Close by inParks Road is theOxford University Museum of Natural History where a number of fossilized dinosaur skeletons can be seen. There was a hatching-dinosaur-egg addition on the wall for a while but it has disappeared.
51°45′31″N1°15′31″W / 51.7585°N 1.2585°W /51.7585; -1.2585