South Oxheya history you can walk
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A thousand years of Oxhey

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From King Æthelred's charter in 1007 to 2026. Filter by era or search.

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  1. Before the estate · to 1943
  2. 1007King Æthelred's charter gives the land at Oxangehæge, the old form of Oxhey, back to St Albans Abbey.29,30
  3. 1282Richard de Oxhey gives a grove and pasture in Little Oxhey back to St Albans Abbey.18
  4. 1360Roger de Louthe is licensed to enclose his woods of Gipps and Edeswyk as a park.18
  5. 1598Francis Heydon is allowed to fell the park's timber and turn the ground over to crops, which ends Oxhey Park.18,35
  6. 23 July 1601A sale of about 500 acres names the warren lodge called Edeswick or Oxhey Lodge and part of the old Oxhey Park.18,35
  7. 4 April 1604James Altham, a serjeant-at-law, buys the Oxhey estate.18,35
  8. 1612Sir James Altham builds Oxhey Chapel, which still stands and is listed Grade II*.18,19,35
  9. February 1617Sir James Altham dies and is buried in his chapel, under a wall monument to himself and his last wife.18,35
  10. 1668William Bucknall buys the Oxhey estate, and his family holds it for nearly two hundred years.18,35,36
  11. 1688Sir John Bucknall pulls down the old mansion of St Cleere's and builds a square brick mansion said to have a hundred windows on each side.18,35
  12. c.1690The carved reredos goes up in Oxhey Chapel, said to be made from oak from the old house pulled down in 1688.18,37
  13. 1766Oxhey Woods appear on Dury and Andrews' map of Hertfordshire.38
  14. 6 October 1774Thomas Estcourt marries Jane, a daughter of Viscount Grimston. Through her, Oxhey later passes to the Estcourt family.39
  15. 1796John Askell Bucknall of Oxhey Place dies unmarried and is buried at the chapel, where a marble monument to him goes up the next year.18,19,35
  16. 1799The Bucknall mansion is demolished and its materials are sold.18,35
  17. 1799With the mansion gone, services at Oxhey Chapel stop and it becomes mainly a lumber store until 1852.18,37
  18. 1822Oxhey Lodge is marked on the first one-inch Ordnance Survey map.40
  19. 1823Thomas Grimston Estcourt, MP for Devizes, takes the name Bucknall by royal licence under John Askell Bucknall's will.41,42
  20. 1844The Watford tithe map records the Oxhey woods as separate parcels.38
  21. 1852Oxhey Chapel is repaired by the Estcourt family and reopened for local worship.19,43
  22. 26 July 1853T. G. Bucknall Estcourt dies, and his son T. H. S. Sotheron Estcourt inherits Oxhey.42,44
  23. March to June 1859The owner of Oxhey, T. H. S. Sotheron Estcourt, serves as Home Secretary.44,45
  24. 1861A City of London coal duty post on the railway embankment near Little Oxhey Lane marks where duty falls due on coal coming into London. Its lettering cites the Act of 1861, though Historic England, which lists it Grade II, dates it to 1851.46,47,48
  25. 11 July 1866The 1,275-acre Oxhey estate and the Manor of Wiggenhall are auctioned at the London Tavern and bought by the newsagent W. H. Smith.20,35,49
  26. 1866 to 1872Nearly 200 acres of the estate are sold off in building lots, and Smith builds a red-brick lodge at the gate of The Warren.18,20,35
  27. 1871 to 1872The first 25-inch Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1871, published 1872) marks a chalk pit and an old chalk pit on the northern edge of today's fields.50
  28. 3 July 1872Smith puts the 1,094-acre estate up for auction, with Thomas Blackwell already the tenant of Oxhey Place farm.20,51
  29. 1872Smith sells the Manor of Wiggenhall to W. T. Eley, and the main estate stays unsold for five years.18,35,49
  30. 1876W. Young builds Oxhey Grange for W. T. Eley.52
  31. 18 October 1877Canon Gee describes the Grimston Oak, which stands a few yards from Oxhey Chapel at the fence of Mr Blackwell's farmhouse.53
  32. 1877Thomas Blackwell of the food firm Crosse and Blackwell buys most of the Oxhey estate.18,35
  33. 1879Thomas Blackwell and his son help pay for the new church district of St Matthew, Oxhey, and Blackwell dies later that year.35,54
  34. 1880The ground round Bushey station takes the name Oxhey when the church of St Matthew is dedicated.55
  35. 1889H. J. Foley publishes a spring walk through Oxhey Woods, past hornbeam, hazel and bluebells.56,57
  36. 1896 to 1908The Blackwells build a new mansion at Oxhey Place, the third great house on the estate. Sources give different building dates.18,36,58,59
  37. 1896An Ordnance Survey revision names Big Wood, Hampermill Wood, Ox Pasture Spring, Round Spring, Oxhey Lodge and Oxhey Warren.58,60
  38. 1897T. F. Blackwell has Oxhey Chapel restored by J. E. K. Cutts, who adds vestries and teak stalls.18,19,61
  39. 1905A local history gazetteer says Gate House Farm, the smallest holding on the estate, is pulled down.62
  40. 14 July 1907Thomas Francis Blackwell, owner of Oxhey Place, dies.63
  41. 1907The railway wins parliamentary approval to lay two more lines beside the Euston to Watford main line, and work begins in 1909.64
  42. c.1910A 1994 local history says the Blackwell family founded the golf company in 1910, with £1,500 of shares.65
  43. c.1911 to 1912The course is built by hand, with horses pulling scoops that gave the earthworks a natural shape.7
  44. 1911Walter Blackwell builds a memorial hall at Oxhey to his father, and cottages for his bailiff and laundress.66,67
  45. 12 April 1912Thomas Anthony Walter Blackwell, heir to Oxhey Place, is born.68
  46. 4 May 1912Oxhey Golf Club opens with a match in which Ted Ray beats Harry Vardon, who laid out the course, by 4 and 2.1,69
  47. June 1912Ray wins the Open Championship at Muirfield, weeks after starting at Oxhey.26,27,70,71
  48. 10 October 1912Walter Reginald Blackwell of Oxhey Place dies, and trustees hold the estate for his baby son.72,73
  49. 1912 to 1913An Ordnance Survey revision prints Golf Club beside Oxhey Warren and Golf Course across the fields.59
  50. 17 May 1913Oxhey Golf Club holds its first annual general meeting at the clubhouse and elects its first captain.26
  51. 1 April 1914A wooden halt for golfers opens on the new lines beside the main line, the forerunner of Carpenders Park station.26,74
  52. 31 December 1916Our Oxhey says the golfers' halt closes as a wartime economy, while Wikipedia gives the date as 1 January 1917.74,75
  53. May 1917With staff away at war, sheep help keep the course, and the club reports a fire in the professional's shed.76
  54. 1918The War Agricultural Committee makes the golf course take cattle as well as sheep.77
  55. 5 May 1919The halt at Carpenders Park reopens, at first for Bakerloo line trains only.74,75
  56. August 1920Ray wins the US Open at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, aged 43.78,79
  57. c.1920The course measures 6,539 yards, the layout John Swain reconstructed in 2003, now shown on the council board.1,8
  58. May 1921Abe Mitchell wins the McVitie & Price Tournament at Oxhey.80
  59. October 1921Bert Seymour beats Jack Gaudin at the 40th hole in the News of the World Match Play final at Oxhey.1,81
  60. 1921The club minutes first suggest reordering the holes, fifteen years before it is done.7
  61. 10 July 1922London and North Western Railway trains, now electric, call at Carpenders Park again, the same day direct services to Broad Street start.75
  62. 16 April 1923Leading professionals, Ray among them, play the Stage Golfing Society at Oxhey.1
  63. 3 October 1924134 acres of the northern Blackwell farms, including Oxhey Lodge Farm, are sold and later become the Oxhey Hall estate.82
  64. June 1927Ray captains Great Britain at the first Ryder Cup, in Massachusetts.83
  65. December 1930The club's extra nine-hole short course is in use at 2s 6d a day, with members' children able to play it on weekdays for a guinea a year.11
  66. 1930Bobby Jones and James Braid beat Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a charity four-ball at Oxhey, watched by about 2,000 people. A golf magazine says Jones went round in 66.1,7,84
  67. October 1931Great Britain beat France at Oxhey in the first women's international between the two countries, the start of the Vagliano Trophy.1,85
  68. 7 July 1932The Oxhey Grange estate is auctioned, with 334 acres of farms and woods offered for building.86,87
  69. 5 October 1933Land sold off the estate in 1924 passes to a Watford building firm, which borrows £6,300 to lay out a new road to be known as Raglan Gardens.82
  70. 1933Anthony Blackwell comes of age and inherits the Oxhey estate.88
  71. 3 September 1935The Times reports that the LMS has contracted a Staffordshire firm to extend the station footbridge over the four main line tracks.89
  72. Mid-1930sA line of electricity pylons goes up along the east side of the course, and a local rule lets a ball that hits a cable be replayed.7
  73. 1935A new Ordnance Survey revision labels the building Club House, with Golf Course across the fields.90
  74. 1935Frederick Absalom begins the St Meryl estate at Carpenders Park, east of the railway.89
  75. 1936The holes are renumbered to balance the two nines, and the old 7th becomes the 1st.1,2
  76. 1936Dai Rees wins the News of the World Match Play final at Oxhey from five down.81
  77. 29 April 1939The golf club reports that the landowner is now its sole owner and that the lease has only until September 1942 to run.3
  78. Autumn 1939Serious golf mostly stops for the war, and sheep graze the course to cut upkeep.7
  79. April 1940Ray retires after 28 years as professional, although two sources give 1941.3,71,91,92
  80. 20 September 1941Anthony Blackwell, who wants no houses on the course, proposes to take over Oxhey Golf Club from its company.3
  81. 5 July 1942Landowner Anthony Blackwell, who had kept the club going, is killed on active service.3,68,88
  82. 5 May 1943The LCC's housing committee tells its valuer to negotiate to buy the Oxhey estate. The Blackwell trustees say it is not for sale.93
  83. July 1943The County of London Plan by Forshaw and Abercrombie is published, with an exhibition at County Hall that summer.31,94
  84. 26 August 1943Ted Ray dies in Watford, aged 66.71,95
  85. 8 September 1943The LCC's housing committee recommends a compulsory purchase order and £500,000 for buying and starting to build on the land.93
  86. October 1943The London County Council decides to buy the Oxhey Place estate compulsorily.96
  87. November 1943The West Herts Post reports opposition to the Oxhey plan, and Bushey residents petition against it.31
  88. 21 December 1943The London County Council makes its compulsory purchase order for the Oxhey estate under the Housing Act, 1936.97
  89. Building the estate · 1944 to 1959
  90. 6 February 1944The Watford branch of the building trade unions' federation passes a resolution backing the LCC scheme.98
  91. April 1944A public inquiry in Watford hears the London County Council's plan to build homes on the Oxhey Place estate.4,99
  92. 29 April 1944The golf club decides to wait and watch rather than spend on objecting to the London County Council's plans.3
  93. 9 June 1944St Alphege's temporary church and hall opens near Carpenders Park station, and the first council tenants will worship there until All Saints is built.100,101
  94. 27 July 1944A V1 flying bomb falls in a field beside the dairy orchard in Oxhey Lane, on ground later used for a flood storage reservoir.102
  95. 28 September 1944The Ministry of Health seals the confirmation order, leaving out two small pieces of land coloured green on the map.97
  96. October 1944The Watford Observer reports that the compulsory purchase of about 921 acres for the new estate has been confirmed.4,31,69
  97. 3 November 1944The Jewish Chronicle advertises vacancies at the Lucy Gaster Children's Home at Oxhey Hall for children aged two to seven.103
  98. 7 November 1944In the House of Lords, Lord Balfour of Burleigh laments the Oxhey order and Lord Latham defends London's need for homes.104,105
  99. 1 December 1944The Oxhey housing order comes into force.106
  100. April 1945The golf club records that the Ministry of Health has confirmed the order, so the council can take the land as and when it needs it.3
  101. 10 May 1945The Minister of Health tells Parliament the land could not be bought by agreement and no price has yet been reached.107
  102. April 1946Watford Rural District Council requisitions Oxhey Place, and part of the house becomes offices for the LCC's surveyors and builders.108
  103. 9 April 1946In the House of Lords, London County Council leader Lord Latham says London needs at least 120,000 new homes and names Oxhey as one of seven sites outside London approved in the Greater London Plan.109,110
  104. 30 July 1946The LCC approves an outline scheme for 3,950 homes on about 925 acres, at a cost of £5,690,750.106
  105. August to September 1946The London County Council says a new estate road along the course's north-east edge will take the 13th green and the 14th and 15th holes, numbered after 1936 (the old 1st, 2nd and 3rd).3
  106. October 1946Building of the South Oxhey estate begins at the railway end, with rubble from bombed London used as hardcore.23,24,111
  107. 31 October 1946The private club closes because it cannot get a long lease.3,12,69
  108. January 1947The golf club's equipment and furniture are advertised for sale, from twelve hand mowers and two tractors to 64 oak chairs.1
  109. April 1947A shortened public course opens, run by the local council.12,24,69
  110. November 1947The first tenants of the new South Oxhey estate move into Hayling Road.23,31
  111. September 1948An Ordnance Survey air photo still shows pale bunker scars on a strip of fairway as the estate goes up beside it.112
  112. October 1948Building stops for a time when 800 workers strike over the sacking of six bricklayers.113
  113. 1948The first council tenants begin worshipping in Oxhey Chapel.114
  114. 1948Families are living in Woodhall Lane by July, and others remember moving into Caldwell Road, Liphook Road and Kilmarnock Road during the year.115,116,117,118
  115. 1948Despite an unofficial strike, 749 homes are finished this year, housing nearly 3,000 people.119
  116. February 1949A youth club for people aged 14 to 25 starts in a church hut at Carpenders Park. By the late summer it is affiliated to the new community association.120
  117. 31 March 1949The LCC's welcome letter to new tenants warns that shops, churches and halls will come only in time.121
  118. April 1949Over 300 tenants meet by hurricane lamp in a builders' canteen and elect a committee to press for schools, roads, transport and telephones. The Oxhey (LCC Estate) Community Association follows in May.113
  119. April 1949The first three shops open in Little Oxhey Lane.113
  120. 14 April 1949Aerofilms photograph the estate from the air, less than half built, with about 7,000 residents by John Swain's estimate.24,111,122
  121. May 1949Warren Dell School, the first on the estate, takes its first pupils, with its formal opening dated to 16 May by John Swain and to 2 July by Our Oxhey.24,28,123
  122. September 1949By this month 1,468 homes are finished, according to John Swain.24
  123. September 1949The Oxhey community association reports 1,014 members, five months after its first meeting.113
  124. October 1949The London County Council adds £1,499,250 to the budget for 152 more houses, bringing the total to 4,102.113
  125. 17 November 1949Aneurin Bevan tells the Commons that the Oxhey estate covers 921.275 acres and cost £1,406,000 to acquire.22
  126. 1949The association launches a junior community association run by children for children, which Poor But Proud says was the first scheme of its kind in the country.113
  127. June 1950The community association holds its first fete on undeveloped plots at the corner of Prestwick Road and Fairfield Avenue, among piles of bricks and scaffolding.113
  128. 7 June 1950The estate's first bus service starts, an extension of route 332 from the Cassiobury Estate to Little Oxhey Lane.23,113
  129. 3 July 1950A post office opens in Little Oxhey Lane.113
  130. 1 August 1950The Clitheroe Club opens in a two-storey clubroom in Clitheroe Gardens.113
  131. September 1950The estate's first local produce show is held at Warren Dell School.113
  132. 11 September 1950Hampden School opens in Little Oxhey Lane as the estate's first secondary school.28,124
  133. June 1951The estate's first library opens in an 1869 farmhouse in Little Oxhey Lane.113,125
  134. June 1951A Herts Education Committee report calls the estate soulless, with no churches, halls or pubs and only six shops for 14,000 people.113
  135. 6 June 1951A small scheme of higher-rent houses for better-off tenants is approved. The first are let in February 1952 at £160 to £195 a year.126
  136. 7 June 1951Oxhey Wood School is officially opened, a year after its first stage opened in May 1950.24,127
  137. September 1951Clarendon School opens in Chilwell Gardens, and its buildings are completed a year later.28,128
  138. 1951The far west of the estate fills up, with families moving into Blairhead Drive in May, Arbroath Green in June and Nairn Green during the year, while others are still moving into Puttenham Close on the east side.129,130,131,132
  139. 1951By now 3,826 homes, housing 16,000 people, are finished, although the county report of that June works from a figure of 14,000.119
  140. 16 January 1952At a meeting at Hampden School, officials say cinemas, pubs, churches and open spaces are planned, and that playing fields are being arranged on the old golf course.126
  141. 5 March 1952Two bus services begin, the 346 between Kingswood and Hayling Road and the 346A between Kingswood and Ormskirk Road.133
  142. 31 March 1952Watford Rural District Council closes the loss-making public course, and the land becomes South Oxhey Playing Fields.1,12
  143. 29 May 1952Parliament hears that the estate has one sub-post office and seven letter boxes, with more promised.134
  144. June 1952The county education committee is allowed to buy eleven old builders' huts behind Oxhey Place for £500 for social use.126
  145. September 1952Little Furze and Greenfields primary schools open, and Greenfields is listed Grade II in 1993.28,135,136
  146. 27 September 1952The foundation stone of the Baptist church hall is laid in Gosforth Lane.137
  147. 8 October 1952The rail crash at Harrow and Wealdstone kills 112 people and is felt sharply on the estate, because commuters often changed there onto a fast train.138
  148. 17 November 1952A new Carpenders Park station, about 210 metres south of the wooden golfers' halt, comes into use.74,139
  149. December 1952House building on the estate is almost finished.126
  150. about 1952The old cottages that held the estate's first police post are pulled down.140,141
  151. 1952Two shops, a bank and an off-licence open in Prestwick Road, the bank being the estate's first Barclays branch.142,143
  152. Early 1953A parade of shops opens in Hallowes Crescent, at the west end of the estate.111,133
  153. January 1953The estate's police station opens.126
  154. 7 January 1953The 346B bus begins as a peak hours feeder to Carpenders Park station, running between Hallowes Crescent and Little Oxhey Lane.133
  155. 17 January 1953South Oxhey Baptist Church opens in Gosforth Lane.144
  156. 28 March 1953The Methodist church in Prestwick Road opens, paid for by a war damage grant from a bombed church in St John's Wood.145
  157. 1 September 1953Oxhey Chapel is listed, and it is now Grade II*.19
  158. 1953The main building phase ends, with about 17,000 people living on the estate.24,25
  159. 1953All Saints church is consecrated beside Oxhey Chapel, although Wikipedia gives its opening as 1954.101,146
  160. 1953Coronation events go ahead in bad weather, and work starts on the main shopping centre.119
  161. 27 September 1954The new Carpenders Park station is formally opened.24,139
  162. 1954St Alphege's temporary church closes.100
  163. 1954The Station Approach shops open, in step with the new station.126
  164. 1954Woodhall School opens across the road from Hampden, taking the infants and juniors of the Bramshaw Gardens and Leven Close streets.28,147,148
  165. 7 January 1955The estate's main post office opens.126
  166. August 1955Ten huts in Ainsdale Road are pulled down, unused after five years of argument between the LCC, the county council and Watford RDC.126
  167. October 1955The Carpenders Park and South Oxhey Council of Youth is formed.126
  168. about 1955St Joseph's Catholic primary school opens in Ainsdale Road, the last of the estate's schools to be built.149
  169. 1955Tall pylons go up at the Sandy Lodge end of the playing fields.12
  170. 23 September 1956The Community Association's first Grand Carnival procession winds through the estate's streets.119,150
  171. October 1956The first number of the South Oxhey Times appears, with the Community Centre in Oxhey Drive as its address.150
  172. about 1956A light aircraft comes down in a bunker beside the old 17th fairway, and children strip it for souvenirs until a policeman is posted to guard it.151
  173. June 1957The LCC agrees to sell the 13.5 acres around Oxhey Place to Watford RDC for £24,500.126
  174. 28 November 1957The LCC sells Watford RDC the plot at Fairfield Avenue and Bridlington Road, the future library site, for £2,500.126
  175. 1957The South Oxhey Carnival parades through the estate, and the sources disagree about the month. Our Oxhey dates it to August, with a procession from Hayling Road to a fairground on the edge of the old golf course, where the Carnival Queen is crowned. Poor But Proud puts it in October, with a parade of floats that starts and ends at Oxhey Pavilion and closes Carnival Week.126,152
  176. 1957The estate's first pub, the Dick Whittington, opens on Prestwick Road, and the new health centre is finished late in the year.119
  177. July 1958The Community Association has a colour film of the estate made, called Came the Day.126,152
  178. September 1958Watford Rural District Council completes its purchase of Oxhey Place, planning to make it a social centre.108
  179. Late 1950sOxhey Lodge is said to have been demolished for housing.40
  180. End of 1958About 30 per cent of the first tenants have left the estate. Departures peaked in 1953.126
  181. 1958BBC's Tonight programme reports on the estate's social problems.119
  182. 1958A footbridge over the railway is put in, about ten years after the first tenants arrived.142
  183. 1 July 1959Oxhey Woods are sold to Hertfordshire County Council for £26,000. The Jet pub opens in Hayling Road the same year.119
  184. 1 July 1959The old golf course is sold to Watford RDC for £48,000, and Oxhey Warren for £2,950, according to Poor But Proud, although later records have the fields passing from the Greater London Council's successor in 1989.126
  185. Life on the estate · 1960 to 1999
  186. 4 July 1960Fire guts most of the Blackwells' Oxhey Place mansion, empty and boarded up for about a year, and it is demolished that summer.108,146,153
  187. 1960St Joseph's Catholic church is built on Oxhey Drive, eight years after the parish was formed.149
  188. 1960Work begins on a £40,000 sports centre beside the Pavilion, with pitches, tennis courts, changing rooms and a restaurant.126
  189. 24 March 1961All Saints, Oxhey, becomes a district of its own, carved out of St Matthew's parish.154
  190. December 1961The Grapevine pub opens in Heysham Drive.126
  191. 1961The old clubhouse reopens as the Pavilion restaurant, and the Pheasant pub is open.119
  192. 1961The census counts 23,663 people in Watford Rural parish, against 18,350 ten years before.155,156
  193. April 1962The LCC warns that rents on its 4,000 Oxhey houses would rise sharply if the estate passed to another council.126
  194. May 1962A new library opens in Bridlington Road.125
  195. 7 July 1962The £8,500 William Morris Hall opens in Henbury Way, paid for by public subscription.126
  196. 1962 to 1963Corbett House and Silkin House, two eight-storey blocks of flats approved in 1960, go up on Lincoln Drive and Matlock Crescent. Both have since been demolished and replaced by houses.157
  197. 1962Secondary school numbers on the estate peak at 1,800.119
  198. Winter 1962 to 1963Part of the Oxhey Chapel roof falls in under heavy snow.114,153
  199. September 1963By two accounts, the Blackwell estate hands Oxhey Chapel over to the Church of England. The vicar, quoted in the Watford Observer that year, put the purchase a year earlier, in 1962.153,158,159
  200. September 1963The Clarendon Youth Wing of the community association opens, and bands play there on Friday nights.128,160
  201. 13 October 1963Residents protest about the lack of a pedestrian crossing near Carpenders Park station, and the Watford Observer photographs mothers pushing prams across the road.161
  202. December 1963The Save the Oxhey Chapel Fund appeal is launched, with John Betjeman and Yehudi Menuhin among its 29 signatories.158,159
  203. 1963 to 1965Natural gas pipelines are laid along the southern edge of the playing fields.12
  204. 1963A pitch-and-putt course opens on the lower end of the old golf links, between Green Lane and Prestwick Road.119
  205. 1963Clarendon School's long awaited swimming pool opens.162
  206. 1964Colnbrook School opens in the old Warren Dell infants' buildings.119
  207. January 1965The playing fields hold a major cross country championship.12
  208. 1 April 1965The Greater London Council replaces the London County Council and takes over the South Oxhey estate.146,163
  209. 2 June 1965The £60,000 Social Centre opens in Gosforth Lane, and a Citizens Advice Bureau opens there a month later.119,126
  210. 16 October 1965Roger Moore, then starring in The Saint, opens a television shop at Station Approach and is mobbed by children.164
  211. 1960sOrdnance Survey maps label the ground South Oxhey Playing Fields and the old clubhouse Oxhey Pavilion.165
  212. mid 1960sThe Salvation Army hut on the corner of Hayling Road and Gosforth Lane closes, and it stands empty for years before housing is built on the site.166
  213. 7 March 1966The Small Faces play at the Social Centre.126
  214. October 1966St Andrew's Road becomes a traffic-free shopping precinct, the first in Hertfordshire.119,126
  215. May 1967The GLC announces that tenants may buy their homes at up to a fifth below market value.126
  216. September 1967Hampden and Clarendon merge to form Sir James Altham, a split-site comprehensive school.28,128
  217. March 1968The South Oxhey and District Tenants' and Residents' Association is formed.119
  218. October 1968More than a thousand tenants refuse a GLC rent rise and pay the money into a tenants' fund. The Housing Minister stops the rise in April 1969.126
  219. November 1969The GLC announces 145 garages on five sites on the estate.126
  220. 1969Oxhey Wood's infant and junior schools are amalgamated, and Rank films Switched on at Seven there, at a school that had a projector in every classroom.127,167
  221. 1970South Oxhey Baptist Church becomes independent of Bushey Baptist Church.137
  222. May 1971The first Oxhey Week is held, amid fears that the main shopping area is running down.119
  223. 6 November 1971Work starts on a £30,000 services club in Hallowes Crescent, later the Crescent Club.126
  224. 1 June 1972Oxhey Jets Football Club is founded as an under-12 team, the date the club gives, while Poor But Proud puts it in 1970.168,169
  225. 1973Oxhey Week is cancelled, after a second year in which several events were called off for want of support.126
  226. 1974Three Rivers District Council is created. Its plans say it has managed the fields ever since, though a 2023 council briefing dates this to 1989.13,170
  227. about 1975The Oxfam shop opens at 3 Bridlington Road, possibly the first charity shop in Oxhey.171
  228. 21 December 1977Oxhey Chapel, declared redundant the year before, passes into the care of the Redundant Churches Fund, now the Churches Conservation Trust.172,173
  229. June 1978The Greater London Council denies claims that 800 homes on the estate are structurally unsound.119
  230. Late 1970sMorison and Altham blocks at the old Clarendon School are demolished for housing, and Clarendon Block stays in use as a community centre.174
  231. Early 1979Burst pipes flood 365 of the estate's 3,750 houses. The GLC says it has sold 350 houses to tenants.126
  232. 1979A swimming pool opens on 8 June at Sir James Altham's lower school, the library is extended, and Carpenders Park gets its first bus service, route W11.119
  233. April 1980Ownership of the estate and its homes passes from the Greater London Council to Three Rivers District Council.23,146,175
  234. May 1981The Community Association has almost 3,000 members, a year after moving into the old Clarendon building.176
  235. 8 May 1981The new headquarters of the 14th Bushey and Oxhey Scout Group in Oxhey Drive is opened by the chairman of Three Rivers District Council.176
  236. 1981St Joseph's Catholic church on Oxhey Drive is consecrated, twenty-one years after it was built.177
  237. 24 September 1982Bakerloo line trains call at Carpenders Park for the last time.74
  238. 1982Falling numbers close one wing of Oxhey Wood School, and part of it comes back as classrooms in 1993.127
  239. August 1983Three Rivers approves Ashridge Park, 75 low-cost homes between Muirfield Road and Ashridge Drive on land once kept for a main road.176
  240. 1984Two big building societies refuse mortgages on the estate's reinforced concrete houses.119
  241. 3 October 1985Oxhey Hall is listed Grade II* and its barn Grade II.178,179
  242. July 1989Sir James Altham School closes, leaving the estate without a secondary school.28,180,181
  243. 1989The London Residuary Body, which has to dispose of the playing fields by December, plans to auction them on 27 July unless Three Rivers agrees a price. Pleas to the county for help with the purchase, put at £1.5 million by the Watford Observer and £1.6 million in Poor But Proud, are refused, and the fields pass to Three Rivers as a local campaign forms to keep them open.12,176,182,183
  244. 1989The first St Martin's church in Muirfield Road is replaced, and the site takes both the new church and the houses of St Martins Close.184,185
  245. 25 September 1990The government confirms that Three Rivers may sell the Prestwick Road shopping centre to its tenants for £440,000.119
  246. 27 March 1991Demolition begins on 50 concrete houses in Fairhaven Crescent, to be replaced by 66 new homes.176
  247. 1991A small nine-hole course, Oxhey Park Golf Club, opens between Prestwick Road and Green Lane.1,69
  248. 2 January 1992The Oxhey Hall moat is scheduled as an ancient monument.186
  249. 1 to 2 May 1993Oxhey Chapel is opened to the public as part of a year of events called Oxangehaege 93, with a community festival at Warren Dell School over the bank holiday.187
  250. 17 July 1993All Saints church closes after blue asbestos is found in its roof.119
  251. 1994Hangers Wood School, the special school that shared the Little Furze site, closes.188
  252. 1996ASCEND begins work from All Saints Church in Gosforth Lane, helping local people into work and training.189,190
  253. 13 June 1997Oxhey Woods is designated a Local Nature Reserve.191,192
  254. 4 July 1998South Oxhey holds its first street party, marking the estate's 50th year.176
  255. 22 July 1998Arthur Bowerman, the volunteer custodian of Oxhey Chapel, receives the MBE for his services to the chapel and the Churches Conservation Trust.193
  256. 22 March 1999A walnut tree about a century old, said to have been planted by the Blackwells, falls across Hayling Road.176
  257. Renewal · 2000 to today
  258. 2000A new All Saints building, with a hall, offices and a crèche, replaces the old church.119
  259. 2001The census counts 12,027 people in South Oxhey.119
  260. 28 September 2002The Centre, a £4.5 million leisure centre, opens in Gosforth Lane.176
  261. 5 October 2002Demolition of Clarendon Block, the last building on the old Clarendon School site to be pulled down, is under way, and former pupils come back for a last look.194,195
  262. 2002 to 2005Buses are withdrawn from parts of the estate after attacks on drivers, return in October 2004, then are withdrawn again.176
  263. 2003John Swain draws his reconstruction of the 1920 course, the plan now shown on the board.8
  264. End of 2004Little Furze Junior School closes.119
  265. 2005Oxhey Wood School is refurbished, most of the Little Furze children transfer in, and a large computer suite is made in part of the dining room.127
  266. January 2006The Jet pub closes, and a licence to reopen it is refused that April.176
  267. 2007Hertfordshire County Council wins £1.4 million from the Big Lottery Fund's Community Libraries programme to remodel and expand Oxhey Library.196
  268. June 2008Furzefield Court, a hostel for 12 young homeless people, opens in Gosforth Lane.176
  269. June 2008The South Oxhey Library Book, made from what more than seventy residents said they wanted, is published and delivered free to local households.197
  270. Summer 2008Oxhey Library closes and the service moves for a year to a temporary building at 39 Oxhey Drive, the old Civil Defence headquarters.198,199
  271. 2008After a tenants' ballot, Three Rivers transfers its council homes, including those in South Oxhey, to the new Thrive Homes housing association.200,201,202
  272. September 2009Oxhey Library reopens after a remodelling, and BBC Two's The Choir: Unsung Town follows the new South Oxhey community choir.196,203
  273. 26 October 2009The remodelled Oxhey Library is formally opened by a county councillor, and the comic poet John Hegley performs there that evening.204
  274. 22 April 2010The film The Kid is released, with many scenes shot on the estate.176
  275. late June 2010The leader of Three Rivers District Council opens ASCEND's Dig Deep allotment at Crowborough Path, taken on a five-year lease the previous November.205
  276. 2010 to 2012A £196,715 project improves paths and information boards in Oxhey Woods.38
  277. 18 March 2011The Our Oxhey community history website, put online in 2010, has its public launch at Oxhey Library.176,206
  278. 7 April 2011The first South Oxhey Initiative open day, at the parish council offices in Oxhey Drive, draws 370 visitors.207,208
  279. 11 May 2011STEP UP opens at 39 Oxhey Drive as a partnership between ASCEND and Herts Mind Network, with a drop-in, training rooms and counselling rooms.209
  280. August 2011Demolition begins on Nanscott House in Prestwick Road, and new residents move into Beck Mason House, built as part of the same scheme, in May 2015.210
  281. December 2011A framework written for the council recommends rebuilding the whole of the South Oxhey centre.208
  282. 2011The Jet pub in Hayling Road is demolished, and Three Rivers launches the South Oxhey Initiative.119
  283. 2011By July 2011 Boots has closed its shop in St Andrew's Road and the Peace Hospice charity shop has the unit.211
  284. 2011Four Hundred Years of Oxhey Place, Houses and People is published, written by the son and grandson of staff at the old mansion.212
  285. 30 January 2012Councillors of all parties vote to redevelop the South Oxhey precinct and the flats above it.213
  286. April 2012The old Clitheroe Club closes to make way for 45 homes for people over 55.176
  287. 30 June 2012Poor But Proud, the history of South Oxhey edited by David Reidy, is launched.214
  288. 17 October 2013The last of the old Methodist church in Prestwick Road is demolished, and the new church a few yards away opens in January 2014.215,216
  289. 17 October 2013The last building of the original Clitheroe Club is demolished, with the new club standing a few yards away and flats built on the old site.217
  290. 22 October 2013New ward boundaries create a single South Oxhey ward.176
  291. 1 April 2014A blue plaque marking the station's centenary is unveiled at Carpenders Park before a crowd of more than fifty.218,219
  292. 12 July 2014A floodlit 3G pitch opens off Little Oxhey Lane.176
  293. 23 October 2014The last Blackwell heir to Oxhey Place, too young to inherit when his father was killed in 1942, dies aged 79.88
  294. 28 November 2014An Age UK Hertfordshire health and wellbeing centre is launched at the new Clitheroe Club.220
  295. Early 2015Barclays closes its branch at Station Approach, more than sixty years after the bank first traded on the estate.143
  296. 31 January 2015The first South Oxhey parkrun is held on the playing fields.221
  297. 21 May 2015The council chooses Countryside Properties and the housing association Home Group as its partners for rebuilding the centre.222,223
  298. 19 November 2015The Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership approves Local Growth Fund money for the regeneration.224
  299. 31 May 2016Planning permission is issued for 514 homes, new shops and a market square in central South Oxhey and on three nearby sites.202,225
  300. 4 July 2016The play Nowhere Near London premieres at the Watford Palace Theatre, with a short documentary film made with residents released to coincide with it.226
  301. September 2016Work begins with the demolition of Baden Hall, the old Scout hall on Henbury Way, and of the Crescent Club on Hallowes Crescent.227,228
  302. 6 December 2016The official ground breaking for the rebuilding of the centre is held in Oxhey Drive.229
  303. January 2017The Dick Whittington is refurbished under new management, although photographs show it looking neglected by December 2019.230
  304. March to April 2017After a public inquiry, the government confirms the council's compulsory purchase order for the precinct.202,231,232
  305. March 2017The Fayer Hall scout hut on Oxhey Drive is demolished, and by December a new scout hut has been built near the Pavilion on the playing fields.233
  306. May 2017The former Barclays and the other Station Approach buildings are demolished.143
  307. October 2017The first residents of the new scheme move into eight houses at Hayling Place.234
  308. January 2018Demolition of the Grapevine pub begins, the site is clear the next month, and 33 flats called The Chess are finished there in 2019.235,236
  309. Spring 2018The first residents move into new affordable homes on Hallowes Crescent and Maylands Road and into the first flats in the centre.227
  310. 4 May 2018The Ox pub on Bridlington Road is finally demolished.237
  311. 30 September 2018The Pavilion pub in the old clubhouse closes, and in 2021 it is listed as an Asset of Community Value.17,238
  312. 2018Ann Shaw Garden, a new play area, opens in memory of the former council leader.227,239
  313. 2019Oxhey Park Golf Club, the nine-hole course laid out in 1991 between Prestwick Road and Green Lane, is listed as closed.240,241
  314. March 2020The council agrees to give the market its own space on Prestwick Road, with water and power for up to fourteen stalls.242
  315. October 2020The first Phase 2 shops open in the rebuilt centre.33,243
  316. 2020The swimming pool at the former Sir James Altham school shuts and does not reopen.244
  317. 4 February 2021The last block of the old shops and flats, including the post office, comes down, ending a demolition that began on 26 November 2020.245
  318. 8 September 2021The last phase of the new centre is topped out, and all 174 homes of the second phase have been handed over.246
  319. 2021The census counts 7,878 people in 3,223 households in South Oxhey ward, which covers only part of the original estate.247
  320. September 2022The Little Furze school buildings on the old Hanging Field are flattened.135
  321. 3 November 2022A Lidl supermarket opens on the corner of Prestwick Road and Oxhey Drive.248
  322. 1 December 2023The council reports that 139 social homes, 82 of them Thrive's, have been insulated to energy band C with a government grant.249,250
  323. 2023A refurbishment paid for with nearly £470,000 of developer levy money and a Lawn Tennis Association grant brings a new games area and dog agility course and renews the tennis courts and skate park.251,252
  324. By 2 June 2024Tom Lake Way is opened and named in memory of Private Tom Lake.253
  325. August 2024The county council approves an adult day centre on the former Sir James Altham school site.254
  326. Autumn 2024Going by the energy certificate register, all 659 homes of the rebuilt centre are finished.34
  327. October 2024The council adopts a 2024 to 2029 plan that proposes a fingerposted walk round the holes of the 1920 course.13
  328. April 2025The council announces that Hertfordshire County Council has approved village green status for parts of the fields, including their named woods.15
  329. November 2025Energy certificates are lodged for 53 new homes at Foxgrove Path, built by Watford Community Housing.255,256
  330. December 2025A fence goes up around the empty Pavilion, across the path from the car park to the playing fields.257
  331. 3 January 2026South Oxhey parkrun holds its 500th event, with a record 392 finishers.221
  332. 21 January 2026Volunteers plant more than 1,500 trees in the first Miyawaki mini woodland in Three Rivers.258,259
  333. March 2026The government directs the council to put seven sites it had ruled out back into its new Local Plan.260
  334. June 2026Hertfordshire's revised Ancient Woodland Inventory is published, counting about 92 of Oxhey Woods' 100 hectares as ancient, along with Pond Wood and several of the playing field woods.16,261
  335. 1 June 2026Thrive Homes merges into Watford Community Housing, and the combined landlord becomes Chime Housing.262,263
  336. 29 June 2026Councillors agree that Watford Rural Parish Council, which covers South Oxhey and Carpenders Park, may write its own neighbourhood plan.264
  337. 16 July 2026The government decides that Three Rivers will join a new South West Hertfordshire council from April 2028, a plan the government pauses for review in September.265,266
  338. 14 September 2026Furzewood Lodge care home opens on the former Little Furze school site.267