Rewriting Jericho’s history

On April 8, More than 60 local residents enjoyed the elegant surroundings of the Fitzhugh auditorium in Exeter College for the 2025 AGM of the Jericho Community Association. Chair Charlotte Christie reported on 2024, a significant year for the Association. This included a change of administrator from Sue Pead who gave 20 year of wonderful service, and the arrival of our new administrator Peter Hart. 

Membership of the Association has been steadily rising. If you are not yet a member it  is easy and free to join here whether or not you live in Jericho. Our main event of the year was the Street Fair and together with the Church, the Bookbinders and the school PTA this was combined into a full weekend of ‘Jericho Fest’. 

Following the committee elections for this year, Charlotte thanked Scott Ellis, who has moved away, for his many contributions to the JCA and Jericho and welcomed Colin Runacres as a new trustee. The full list of trustees is available here.

The 2024 Street Fair was strongly supported by residents, and by local businesses who provided many tempting raffle prizes

Our main task,  is to operate and maintain the Community Centre which become increasingly difficult as the fabric of the building deteriorates.  Treasurer Peter Stalker underlined this when he presented the annual accounts. Around £7,000 a year is spent on repairs and maintenance. In 2024, however, thanks to increased income from room hire we managed a surplus of around £10,000.

As our part-time administrator, Peter Hart combines this work with other activities such as being a local tour guide and administering Summertown Stars football club. In his report he noted that over a nine-year period the number of classes had increased by around 50 percent.

For the Jericho Wharf Trust, David Feeny, updated members on the campaign for compulsory purchase (CPO) of the Wharf site by the City Council. There appeared to be no legal obstacles to a CPO and currently the City are consulting with the latest developer to discover if he is considering another planning application, and checking  the current financial viability of the 2014 scheme which had widespread community support.

The simplest option would be to revert to a revised version of the 2014 proposals

The main event of the evening was a fascinating talk on the origins of Jericho by historian Mark Davies. Mark went back to  original historical documents and it is now clear that the pre-existing establishment called Jericho/Jericho Gardens was not an inn or public house, as has always been believed.  The area was shown in the Domesday Book in 1086 when it was part of Walton Manor, and by 1279 was called 'Twentiacre'. Later it became Bear Meadows. The first mention of ‘Jericho Gardens’ was in 1668. 'Jericho House' was mentioned in print in 1773, though it was not then a pub. It was first recorded as public house only in around 1800. So, time to rewrite the many histories of Jericho -- even Mark’s own.

The origin story of Jericho has centred round what is now the Jericho Tavern. In 1818, 'Jericho House' faced onto  Jericho Street

An important source of Jericho’s history comes from a ‘community scrapbook’ of Jericho produced in 1956 by Miss C. L. M. Hawtrey. Mark has been working on an annotated version of this to be published next month. This is part of a series of activities to celebrate the establishment Jericho as a suburb of Oxford, dating back to 1825 which was when Oxford University Press bought its land and the ‘Jericho Brass and Iron Foundry moved to its canalside location – what was to become Lucys.

The book will be part of a series of activities to celebrate the establishment Jericho as a suburb of Oxford, dating back to 1825 which was when Oxford University Press bought its land, the ‘Jericho Brass and Iron Foundry' moved to its canalside location – what was to become Lucy's – and the first substantial tranche of plots was auctioned for house-building.

Mark encouraged the audience to consider arranging other events this year, possibly based on the number 200. The logo on the right below, created by the Jericho Living Heritage Trust, is available for wider use.