Planning 1931 - some Notes Published 1931

 

This is one of three villages - Marston, Woodeaton and Elsfield - which, lying to the east of of Oxford and seperated from its nothern residential area of the Cherwell River, are somewhat inaccessible.

 

With improved communication from Oxford, possibly by a new road from the Banbury Road, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Holywell Park and crossing the Cherwell, these three charming and comparatively unspoiled agricultural villages might form the nuclei for well-controlled residential development in the neighbourhood.

 

Marston, the largest of the three, can hardly be expected long to escape an inundation of working-class houses from the near neighbourhood of Headington with which it is presently connected.

 

Marston may also form one day an outpost of cottages to an important offshoot of buildings (possibly cottages) which may shortly discover the advantageous situation of the stretch of elevated land so near to Oxford, which lies in its vicinity.

 

The new by-pass road will pass, as planned, north of Marston.

 

[Regional Survey, 1931, p48 - {Oxfordshire: a regional survey. Regional Planning Report: The Earl of Mayo, S. D. Adshead, Patrick Abercrombie OUP 1931]