Florence Park
Florence Park Estate was developed by Frederick Moss, who moved to East Oxford from Wales in 1929 in the hope of developing housing for men coming to work at the Morris Motors & Pressed Steel factories.
Moss bought 73 acres of farmland, market garden, and marsh from Christ Church, where between 1933 and 1937 he built the Florence Park Estate.
The Estate became known as ‘Little Rhondda’ because many Welshmen moved there in the 1930s and 1940s. Moss bought 73 acres of farmland, market garden, and marsh from Christ Church, where between 1933 and 1937 he built the Florence Park Estate.
Florence Park Estate was the largest private estate built in Oxford in the interwar period, and consisted of over 600 houses, ‘The Jolly Post Boys’ pub, seven shops, and a doctor’s house.
The condition and structural defects of the houses was to be the cause of many protests by tenants on the Estate. When Moss did not respond to complaints, a tenants’ committee was formed.
In 1934, the tenants held a rent strike to force the landlord to make repairs. They succeeded in getting the houses brought up to standard.
In May 1934, Frederick Moss donated 21 acres of the Florence Park Estate building site to the Oxford City Council for a park. He named both the Estate and the park after his late sister Florence Inson.
He imposed a condition that there should be an emphasis on flowers rather than games, and that at least 3 acres should be set aside for a children’s corner.
Florence Park was opened in July 1936, and a plaque commemorating this event can be found on the original gates.
The Florence Park Residents Association was formed in 1949, and work started in 1952 to build a community centre in Cornwallis Road. Many volunteers worked to build the Centre, and continuous fundraiser events contributed to the building fund.
The Centre opened in 1957, and the building has been added to over the years. In 1967, Florence Park became the first community centre in Oxford to hold its own licensed bar. The Centre has a long tradition of hosting a wide range of community events, such as street parties, pram races, and sport matches. It remains central to organising activities that bring the community together.
Florence Park is located near Oxford City Farm and Boundary Brook Nature Reserve, as well as the Elder Stubbs allotments. Local residents reminisce that the road between the park and the allotments used to be a dirt track, and was less of a boundary than it is today.
Florence Park received its Green Flag Award in 2008. The Florence Park Tree Trail, created in 2019, celebrates the many different kinds of trees that the Park is home to.
Florence Park, the Estate, its community centre, and Larkrise Primary School inspires and sustains a year-round programme of arts events and other activities.
Florence Park hosts the annual FloFest, a popular volunteer-run and non-profit festival. This originated as a fete in 2013, supported by Friends of Florence Park.
Flo’s - The Place in the Park, a community-owned hub for people to meet, work, play, create, and eat, opened in 2018. Damascus Rose Kitchen, founded by Syrian refugee women, had its first permanent location at Flo’s.
Six roads in Florence Park are named after British generals who served in India between 1797-1880. A decolonising campaign, calling for these street names to be changed, has emerged over recent years as a critique to this colonial legacy that still remains visible in Florence Park.
Dr Juliet Henderson, involved in the campaign, writes that “[we] are keenly aware of those local street names bearing the names of military men with brutal histories in the British colonies”. Their project aims to contrast these colonial histories with “the real, vibrant history of our local community which dates back to the 1930s”.
