Polstead Road
historyPolstead Road is a residential road that runs between Kingston Road and Hayfield Road to the west and the Woodstock Road to the east, in the suburb of North Oxford, England. Half way along it forms the southern junction of Chalfont Road. The road is probably named after the village of Polstead in the county of Suffolk.
St. Margaret's Institute Community Center was the first building constructed on Polstead Road, following a subscription by parishioners of St. Philip and St James Church in 1889 "for the building of a Working Men's Institute, 'to provide rational amusement and instruction for working men of any creed, sect, or opinions, who may thus be kept out of public houses'".Robinson & Buxton, "Hayfield Road - Nine hundred years of an Oxford Neighborhood" ISBN 0952240106 ISBN 978-0952240105 (December 1993)
The Anchor Inn[http://www.nb-bronington.co.uk/pubs/Pub%20pics/Oxford%20pub%20pics/Anchor%20Oxford.JPG][http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1079/1340217419_1b95c60bde.jpg?v=0], featured in Inspector Morse, "Death is Now My Neighbor" is located at the corner of Hayfield and Polstead Roads.
's childhood home was at 2 Polstead Road.]] The most famous resident was T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), who was later to become known as Lawrence of Arabia. He was brought up in a house (No. 2) on this road and a blue plaque records the fact. Sir Thomas Chapman, the 7th Baronet of Westmeath, Ireland, separated from his wife to live with his daughters' governess, Sarah Junner. They had five sons and the couple lived in Polstead Road under the names of Mr and Mrs Lawrence, moving to No. 2 in the summer of 1896 with the aim that the children could receive a good education for a reasonable cost. T. E. Lawrence attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys in central Oxford. Here also was born his youngest brother, A.W. Lawrence, who went on to become the Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University in the 1940s.
The house is a semi-detached redbrick house that had been built approximately six years before the Lawrences moved there. They built a bungalow in the garden because the house was not large enough to accommodation the entire family. 2 Polstead Road remained the Lawrence family home until after the First World War.
- »T. E. Lawrence: 2 Polstead Road, Oxford and »garden bungalow
- »Lawrence of Arabia locations
- »St Margaret's Institute Community Centre, 30 Polstead Road, Oxford
- »The Anchor Inn, Polstead Road and Hayfield Road