Some bits of history


Kennington cold storage depot

Kennington in 1922
Map published by Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton in 1922
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Few people will be aware of a large wartime food storage facility which once existed alongside the main Didcot to Oxford railway line, just south of the junction which served the line from Oxford towards Thame and Princess Risborough. Visiting today, it is impossible to visualise what the area between the modern villages of Radley and Kennington was like during the early to mid 1900s, and so a brief outline might be useful.

In the late 1800s Radley (now known as 'Lower Radley') consisted of a few cottages and farms clustered close to the river Thames and accessed, as now, by a narrow lane which crossed the Didcot to Oxford line by means of an overbridge. There were no buildings where the village of Radley now exists save for the Bowyer arms which stood in isolation. Recognisible today however were Church Farm with its associated outbuildings, St. James's Church and vicarage, and a school for boys and girls clustered on the road leading north towards Kennington and opposite the entrance to what was to become Radley College boarding school. From here a lane, now called Kennington Road, wound its way northwards past Park Farm to the point where Sandford Lane branched off towards the lock and paper mill. From here the lane went in a straight line to St. Swithun's (or Swithin's) Church and the small cluster of cottages which formed the hamlet of Kennington. This straight lane was featureless with only a small school being built around 1890 followed by Oxford University Golf Club. Land sales in 1913 saw the beginning of large scale residential development in the area and these continued throughout the 1920s and 1930s and saw the lane, now named The Avenue, become the main road through the modern village of Kennington.

The extract above, taken from the 6inch map published by the Ordnance Survey Office in 1922, shows just how undeveloped the area was at that time. The school can be seen at the bottom with the very rural tree-lined lane heading off towards the golf club and thence to Radley. Towards the top by St. Swithin's [sic] Church it joins what was then the road down to Abingdon and Sunningwell. This old road survives as 'Bagley Wood Road' but, whilst still passable, it is very narrow and now serves only to provide access to the houses which lie along it.


Kennington in 1952
Map published by the Ordnance Survey, Chessington in 1952
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Following the outbreak of war in 1939 the Ministry of Food was created and they established a series of cold storage depots around the country to supply local Army and Air Force bases with frozen meat. Land between St Swithun's Church and the existing Kennington goods loops was compulsorily purchased for the Oxford depot which was built by the International Storage Company, and operated for the Ministry of Food. It was a plain building with thick walls surrounded by a high brick wall topped by barbed wire. The road entrance to the depot was down a service road leading from the Kennington to Radley road about mid-way between the church and school, through two iron gates and past a Gatehouse. There was perhaps also pedestrian access from Cow Lane, one was certainly mentioned in a planning application during 1983 (see below). Rail connection was provided from the Down Goods Running Loop with south facing catch points and sidings into the storage depot. A two lever ground frame operating the northerly points and home signal was brought into use on 10th July 1942 when the store opened and rail movements were placed under the control of Sandford signal box which had been opened on 7th April 1940. At first there was very little other development in the immediate area, but housing schemes were to occupy all available space over the next couple of decades and the service road ended up emerging onto the residential Poplar Grove with the depot almost lost behind the houses. The cold store would have still been in operation when this 2½" O.S. map was published in 1952. It shows the main building and railway sidings on site, and hints at the encroaching residential development. The land to the south remained relatively undeveloped at this time, but that would change drastically over the next decade or so.

Kennington cold store in the 1940s
The cold store sometime during the 1940s
Courtesy of Carole Newbigging
Kennington cold store in the 1940s
Photograph © Jeremy Tilston
Kennington cold store in the 1940s
The cold store sometime during the 1940s
Courtesy of Carole Newbigging
Kennington cold store in the 1940s
Photograph © Jeremy Tilston

Photographs of the building are very rare and so we are garateful to Carole Newbigging for her kind permission to use this image from her personal collection. Thanks also to Jeremy Tilston who, as a young tenneager, lived locally and took this photograph of a special steam excursion from Didcot on 30th March 1979. Clearly visible at the top of the photograph, and above the trees, is the corner of the cold store. It was to stand for a few more years before finally being demolished.

Following the war there was a declining need for such facilities but the cold store remained in use until the mid 1950s when the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Food were merged to form the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and the facility ceased to be used by them. That was not quite the end of the story however, as the temperature within the store was raised so that it could be used commercially as a chilled food store which it did for a few years before finally closing altogether in 1969.

Kennington in 1985
Illustration based on plans submitted as part of the 1983 and 1985 planning applications

A letter dated 12th December 1983, from the office of the Senior Estete Surveyor of the Property Services Agency addressed to the Vale of White Horse District Council, under the heading of the Department of the Environment, stated that 'this property, formerly occupied by MAFF as a Cold Store for foodstuffs, is vacant and surplus to Government requirements'. It sought to initiate 'a formal consultation with the council as to the future uses that the property can be put once it leaves Crown ownership'. Three options were proposed being, as a wholesale warehouse or repository, used for light industry, or use for residential purposes. In early 1984 the council confirmed that there were no planning objections to any of the proposed uses in the event of the vacant government property being disposed of. A plan of the site and immediate surroundings was included as part of the consultation process.

In the event, the site was sold to Westbury Homes who in 1985 applied for, and obtained, planning permision to clear the whole site and develop it, and more, for residential purposes. Accompanying that application was an almost identical plan of the site to that used in 1983, and we have used that as the basis for our illustration. The railway sidings and connection to the main line are shown on the submitted plan, so it is possible that they were still in place at the time. It can be seen just how much residential development had take place over the previous forty years. The Westbury proposal utilised the existing access road from Poplar Grove as the entrance to its estate, becoming Otters Reach with River View leading off. The substatial building was therefore demolished, the whole site cleared, and new housing hiding all trace of what had once stood there.

As an interesting footnote, we found during our researches that spoil from the original site levelling in readiness for the buiding of the store was dumped in the grounds of Kennington Manor House. In 1945 the spoil was subject to a belated archaelogical examination and was found to contain a quantity of broken pottery and wasters of Roman origin, leading to the suggestion that it might have been the site of a Roman pottery.