Summertown, Oxford

Summertown in North Oxford is a suburb of Oxford, England. Summertown is a one mile square residential area, north of St Giles, the boulevard leading out of Oxford's city centre. Summertown is home to several independent schools and the city's most expensive houses. On both sides of Banbury Road are Summertown's popular shops. There is also a smaller street of shops and restaurants, South Parade, that links Banbury Road and Woodstock Road. Summertown is home to much of Oxford's broadcast media. BBC Radio Oxford and the BBC Television's Oxford studios are on Banbury Road. Start ups also have an increasing presence on the parade, such as Brainomix and Passle. The studios for JACK FM, Glide FM, and Six TV Oxford (no longer broadcasting) are on Woodstock Road.

Most of North Oxford came into being as a result of the revolutionary decision by the university in 1877 to permit college fellows to marry and live in real houses, as opposed to rooms in college. The parish originated as part of Saint Giles, Oxford, when the chapel of Saint John the Baptist was completed in Middle Way, Summertown in 1832. It was a chapel of ease until 1834, when it was made a separate ecclesiastical parish. St. Michael's is also a cruciform Early English Gothic Revival building, in this case designed by A. M. Mowbray. The building has never been completed. It has a chancel, north and south transepts, vestry, and a south chapel beside the chancel, but the nave and north and south aisles comprise only one bay ending in a "temporary" west wall that has stood for more than a century. It has been a Spiritualist church since 1967. on the corner of Beechcroft Road, was opened in 1897 and rebuilt in 1955. was founded in 1911, the same year as Saint Edmund and Frideswide (Iffley Road, now run by the Capuchin Franciscans). Previously the Oxford area had been served by the Jesuits at St Aloysius (now an Oratory of St Philip Neri), which was founded in 1875, replacing the church of St Ignatius (in St Clement's), which had been founded immediately after the relaxation of the penal laws forbidding the building of Catholic places of worship, in 1795. More Catholic parishes were established in the ensuing decades. The architect was Ernest Newton, and a much admired member of the Arts and Crafts movement. The fabric of the church is very little changed from the time of its foundation. Nikolaus Pevsner described the church thus (1974): "By Ernest Newton. Small and stuccoed. A rectangle, white, with a cupola. W. window with a gently double curved head. Plaster tunnel vault inside with tie beams."

In 1898 the City of Oxford Tramways Company extended its Banbury Road horse tram route to a new terminus at Summertown. In 1913 the company replaced its horse trams with motor buses. Buses running between central Oxford and Summertown via Banbury Road include the Oxford Bus Company 2, 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D, Heyfordian Travel 25 and 25A and Stagecoach 7, 7A, 7B, 17 and S5. Banbury Road also has limited stop Park and Ride bus services linking Water Eaton with central Oxford (route 500 run by the Oxford Bus Company) and with the John Radcliffe Hospital (route 700 run by Stagecoach). As of 2011, Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach came to an agreement in which they would share the same bus timetable. This eliminated the 7, 7A and 7B buses. This also benefited the public because not only were the buses more coordinated in their schedule but the public could use the same ticket/bus pass on each of the bus companies' buses.