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Arts at the Old Fire Station

Studio theatres in OxfordVisual arts stubs
Oxford old fire station
Oxford old fire station

Arts at the Old Fire Station ('AOFS') is a charity operating an arts centre, comprising a Theatre, Gallery and Shop, in George Street, Oxford, England.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Arts at the Old Fire Station (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Arts at the Old Fire Station
George Street, Oxford City Centre

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.753611111111 ° E -1.2622222222222 °
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Address

Old Fire Station Theatre

George Street
OX1 2AQ Oxford, City Centre
England, United Kingdom
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Oxford old fire station
Oxford old fire station
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Gloucester Green
Gloucester Green

Gloucester Green is a square in central Oxford, England, and the site of the city's bus station. It lies between George Street to the south and Beaumont Street to the north. To the west is Worcester Street and to the east is Gloucester Street. The green was once an open space outside Gloucester College (now Worcester College), after which it was named. From 1783 to 1915 a fair was held on the green, and from 1835 to 1932 it was the site of the city's cattle market. In 1935, after the cattle market had been moved, the western half of Gloucester Green became the site of the city's bus station, and the eastern half became a car park. In 1987, a major redevelopment of the area began. The eastern half became a square, surrounded by shops, restaurants and residential accommodation. A new, smaller, bus station was built on the site of the old bus station, and an office block was built between the bus station and Worcester Street. An underground car park was also provided. Today, the Gloucester Green bus station is the Oxford terminus for long-distance coach services, including services to London, coaches to Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted airports, and route X5 to Cambridge. The bus station is too small to accommodate more than a few local bus services. A food market is held in the square every Wednesday to Saturday and an antiques market every Thursday. Gloucester Green is surrounded by Oxford theatres: close by are the Oxford Playhouse and Burton Taylor Studio theatres on Beaumont Street and Gloucester Street, respectively, and the Old Fire Station Theatre and the New Theatre, both on George Street.

Buildings of Nuffield College, Oxford
Buildings of Nuffield College, Oxford

The buildings of Nuffield College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, are to the west of the city centre of Oxford, England, and stand on the site of the basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield; he gave land for the college, as well as £900,000 (approximately £246 million in present-day terms) to build and endow it. The architect Austen Harrison, who had worked in Greece and Palestine, was appointed by the University to design the buildings. His initial design, heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, was rejected by Nuffield, who called it "un-English" and refused to allow his name to be associated with it. Harrison reworked the plans, aiming for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted. Construction of the second design began in 1949 and was finished in 1960. Progress was hampered by post-war building restrictions, and the effects of inflation on Nuffield's donation led to various cost-saving changes to the plans. In one change, the tower, which had been planned to be ornamental, was redesigned to hold the college's library. It was the first tower built in Oxford for 200 years and is about 150 feet (46 m) tall, including the flèche on top. The buildings are arranged around two quadrangles, with residential accommodation for students and fellows in one, and the hall, library and administrative offices in the other. The chapel has stained glass windows designed by John Piper. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin said that Harrison's first design was Oxford's "most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s"; it has also been described as a "missed opportunity" to show that Oxford did not live "only in the past". Reaction to the architecture of the college has been largely unfavourable. In the 1960s, it was described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction". The tower has been described as "ungainly", and marred by repetitive windows. The travel writer Jan Morris wrote that the college was "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, although unimpressed with most of the college, thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted it would "one day be loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, and claimed that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower – as well as the rest of the college.

Beaumont Palace
Beaumont Palace

Beaumont Palace, built outside the north gate of Oxford, was intended by Henry I about 1130 to serve as a royal palace conveniently close to the royal hunting-lodge at Woodstock (now part of the park of Blenheim Palace). Its former presence is recorded in Beaumont Street, Oxford. Set into a pillar on the north side of the street, near Walton Street, is a stone with the inscription: "Near to this site stood the King's Houses later known as Beaumont Palace. King Richard I was born here in 1157 and King John in 1166". The "King's House" was the range of the palace that contained the king's lodgings. Henry spent Easter 1133 in the nova aula – his "new hall" at Beaumont – in great pomp, celebrating the birth of his grandson, the future Henry II. Edward I was the last king to sojourn in Beaumont officially as a palace, and in 1275 he granted it to an Italian lawyer, Francesco Accorsi, who had undertaken diplomatic missions for him. When Edward II was put to flight at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, he is said to have invoked the Virgin Mary and vowed to found a monastery for the Carmelites (the White Friars) if he might escape safely. In fulfilment of his vow he remanded Beaumont Palace to the Carmelites in 1318. In 1318, the Palace was the scene for the beginnings of the John Deydras affair, in which a royal pretender, arguing that he was the rightful king of England, claimed the Palace for his own. John Deydras was ultimately executed for sedition.When the White Friars were disbanded at the Reformation, most of the structure was dismantled and the building stone reused in Christ Church and St John's College. An engraving of 1785 shows the remains of Beaumont Palace, the last of which were destroyed in the laying out of Beaumont Street in 1829.