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Oxford Castle - A Partnership Approach
Oxford Castle is the largest project to date undertaken by Oxford Preservation Trust, a £6 million scheme as part of the wider commercial £40 million Oxford Castle regeneration, completed in a partnership between the public sector - Oxfordshire County Council (OCC), the private sector - the Trevor Osborne Group (TOG), and the Charity sector - Oxford Preservation Trust (OPT), with support from SEEDA (South East England Regional Development Agency), English Heritage (EH) and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
Today this five acre site in the centre of the city, once hidden within walls, has been opened up to reveal a Malmaison hotel housed in a 19th century prison building, restaurants, cafes, an art gallery and 40 apartments. Alongside sits the Key Learning Centre and the Oxford Castle Unlocked visitor attraction which allows people to climb the Saxon St George's Tower and the Norman Castle Mound and provides a schools and lifelong learning programme aimed at local people. Throughout the year, the public squares around the site are used for music, theatre and festivals. Oxford Castle has received a number of national and international awards including RICS Building of the Year and an MIPIM property award.
So how did a buildings preservation trust and charity get involved in such a large venture?
Oxford Castle first appears in OPT's Annual Report of 1942 "Great expectations have been aroused recently by the prospect of Oxford Castle and Prison being vacated ... and the possibilities for the site ... as a space ... for a public park, perhaps a County and City museum." In 1996 when the Prison became vacant, OPT was happy to support OCC's decision to buy the site from the Home Office at the original selling price.
Oxford Castle had been designed to keep people out and Oxford Prison designed to keep people in, so this was the first time in 1000 years of history that a chance had arisen to open it up and to let it tell the little known story of a Norman Castle built within a Saxon town and a prison spanning 1000 years.
The Norman Castle was built in 1071 on the western edge of the Saxon city taking in St. George's Tower, the earliest secular structure in the country as it stands today. Beside it sits the Norman Castle Mound and underground vaulted well chamber, and close by, the crypt of the later St George's Church now hidden under a wing of the Prison; the place where Geoffrey of Monmouth taught in the emerging university and wrote the Legends of King Arthur.
The Castle Keep disappeared after it was last in use in the Civil War and the 19th century Prison was built, much of which survives. These buildings tell of John Howard and prison reform, with early prison cells, Debtors Tower, and Pentonville wing. Nearby sit the early Law Courts with their underground tunnel leading from the Dock into the Prison Yard as used by Dennis Neilsen, the Black Panther.
OCC needed to find a new and sustainable use for the site and its buildings, and whilst they were committed to telling the history and providing public access, they would need to achieve this without cost to the ratepayer. Advertising attracted 80 expressions of interest and, in a long story made short, the Trevor Osborne Group was selected. OPT worked on and paid towards a Conservation Plan for the Castle in partnership with OCC and others, one of the earliest conservation plans and a document which was to prove invaluable as the 'bible' for all those parties that were to become involved in the delivery of this difficult and complicated scheme, bringing together all the information on the development and history in one place.
The private sector involvement brought the ingenuity and flare needed to put together a mixed use development which re-uses the listed buildings and scheduled ancient monuments in an interesting and sustainable way, adding value, encouraging new architecture, and regenerating the site. But this would also be costly and the values did not add up. The Developer was able to attract funds from banks and from SEEDA who also wanted to see wider benefits delivered.
A champion was needed to ensure that the wider vision was achieved, restoring all the heritage buildings on the site, making sure that there was public access, and ensuring that the sense of pride and belonging for the people of the city was delivered.
OPT rose to the challenge and the Castleyard scheme began to form. The HLF showed interest in the scheme which would open up the site for the first time in its history, tell Oxford's history outside the University in the place where it happened, open a new Learning Centre and give local people a sense of pride in their past.
It was agreed that OPT should have one third of the site to include St George's Tower, the crypt and the Mound. Aware of the pitfalls of entering into an agreement with a commercial developer a scheme was agreed where the developer and OCC entered into a development agreement which required repairs to the historic buildings to be carried out to an agreed standard with the work completed before the hotel and businesses could open. The value of this work, in turn, acted as the match funding for the HLF bid.
We all worked as a team. Public, private and charitable sector views caused inevitable ups and down as competing pressures of time and cost occurred and deadlines loomed. We learned to compromise and brought together a delivery team, made up of archaeologists and architects, project managers and surveyors, EH, the City Council and the main partners, which met regularly tomake progress happen. TOG built OPT a viewing platform on the top of St George's Tower whilst the scaffolding was up for the stone repairs, and before the funds were certain. They built a tunnel under the prison wing (D Wing) to give disabled access to the Crypt. A couple of false starts delayed this progress when underground archaeology was discovered, accessible today when people can go underground and walk through the surrounding archaeology.
OPT waited our turn for the repair work to our buildings to happen. We were successful in raising the HLF grant and other funds needed. We obtained listed building consent to take down part of the 19th century Prison Wall and the Mound to bring together the remaining Castle buildings once more, (where others might have failed).
With the commercial development attracting a Malmaison Hotel and Carluccio's restaurant we knew we must keep our standards high if heritage was not to be the poor relation. The D Wing cells where visitors read the story of early prisoners may look untouched to the eye, but they make an interesting contrast to a stay at Malmaison where three cells make a bedroom with ensuite facilities. Outside the Castleyard was designed as a high quality performance space, much needed in Oxford (with its private college quads), where schools perform, theatre and music take place and which is now home to the City's annual Archaeology Festival and the centre of OPT's Oxford Open Doors, the third largest Heritage Open Day event in the UK in 2009.
Oxford Castle moved into a new phase of its history when it was opened in 2006 by Her Majesty the Queen. The partnership between public, private and charity continues today as the County Council continue to own the freehold of the site and the Developers have a long leasehold interest and manage the site (cleaning, repairing, marketing and running events). OPT has become a tenant, with the County taking responsibility for the structure of the buildings and the developers taking a service charge towards the costs of management. In a partnership with OPT the visitor attraction is run by commercial operators Continuum and the County provide a Learning and Access Officer for the Key Learning Centre. Oxford Castle Unlocked’s visitor numbers have grown and now exceed the 70,000 predicted annually, and the thriving education and lifelong learning programme alongside is on track to achieve our target of seeing every schoolchild in Oxfordshire visit us. Overall the site has attracted 334 jobs, 11 businesses and 5,400 learning opportunities.
Oxford Castle has become a catalyst for the regeneration for the surrounding area, now known as Oxford's West End and supported by SEEDA, Oxford City Council, OCC and the University and Colleges. In 2010 OCC have sold their 1960s office site alongside the Mound to a charitable trust, Science Oxford, and exciting plans for a new Science and Education Centre linking into the main Castle site are coming forward.
And so the history continues, a story of past, present and future, a history of partnership and collaboration, bringing the very best of private, public and charity sector together. Debbie Dance, Director of OPT says As a generation we can be justly proud that we have had the innovation and the flare to create Oxford Castle, to turn a prison into a hotel and then to stay in it, to make a place, and make it fun, a place for learning and for entertainment. I for one, am happy to leave this for future generations to enjoy'
D J Dance April 2010
From an article in Context, May 2010, an IHBC Publication focussing on The Association of Preservation Trusts
More information on the Oxford Castle site
More information on Oxford Castle Unlocked