ABOUT JERICHO - LANDMARKS
Jericho Health Centre
A functional building that offers ample space for two health practices
New Radcliffe House
Posted - March 14, 2016The Jericho Health Centre occupies the ground floor of New Radcliffe House in Walton Street. The building cost £11 million and was completed in 2012. It is owned by Oxford University which leases the ground floor to the NHS for two GP practices which have around a dozen doctors. In 2003, the NHS sold the Radcliffe Infirmary site to the University for the development of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter. A condition of the sale, and the subsequent planning permission, was that the site should offer a new home for the Jericho Health Centre.
Originally the plans were more ambitious – to house more practices and onsite medical services such as X-rays and also a pharmacy. But because of budgetary constraints plans had to be scaled back. Moreover, design finished up rather plain, described by the Civic Society as ‘bland and uninspiring’. Nevertheless, the doctors consider this a good functional build which is a huge improvement on their old building at the top of Cranham Street. Other floors of the building are occupied Oxford University’s Department of Public Health Care and Oxford University Press.
Margaret Thatcher used to live here?
In her Oxford days, she lived at 12 Richmond Road. It is alleged she shared the house with two red-hot communists who lived on a diet of sausages. This may account for her later views on socialists and known dislike of sausages.
Where the community centre came from?
The centre was built at the end of the 19th century as the Church Institute for St. Barnabas.