ARmy Rumour SErvice

The site nowadays is largely occupied by Shotover country park. Bit of info from the Shotover park leaflet states....
'During WW2 Slade camp was part of Cowley barracks and provided a temporary home for soldiers who took part in the D Day landings. At the same time Shotover hill was used for military training and tanks built at Cowley were tested there'.
When they built the Oxford ring road it cut the camp in half, the half on the outside of the road has virtually disappeared, few bits of info here....Slade Camp, Oxford - Dereliction in the Shires
Hope that helps

interesting that SHotover is now a 'park' - was just scrub and brush once one left the 'woods' (went thru a field to get to Shotover',) Have seen Shotover since (1990) but preferred it way it was. As i remember there was a small 'spring' about 1/2 way up - welcomed to us kids who did not bring water! I preferred the more 'wild' Shotover - where you had to find your own way around. Used to walk to Horsepath from there.

When were the huts built? Doubt they were built just for D day - but then they could have been, I Guess the tanks going down Holloway were headed for one of the then 2 Oxford railway stations? I don't remember any tanks headed bacl to camp.

WHen was the Cowley Barracks disbanded - I remember hearing various bugle calls from my house - that would have been in 50's

GEOF

Hi Geof
I may be of some help in regards to what happend to "The Slade" as our family still calls it, I myself was born there! 5 Eighth Avenue as was, still marked on Google Maps. It was right across the Ring Road that disected the camp from the small arms firing range which was still in use if I remember as rightly a kid. Maybe able to shed some light on the Air Raid Shelter and other long gone installations. You'll have to trust my memory though!

Andy P

The old Slade Barracks is now all housing. The statue of the Boer War soldier is now re-homed at Edward Brooks Barracks in Abingdon.

As I remember - there were no air-raid shelter in the 'park' - i think there were some in the Cowley Barracks - but I was never in there much. As I kid- I thought the Slade Park was pretty primitive living conditions. However, as far as I know it was not known for crime problems, just pretty basic, since they were army huts. Odd they needed them, as Oxford was not bombed, thus should not have needed emergency housing
GEOF

Originally Posted by GEOF

HI

As kid living in Cowley- used to watch tanks going down Holloway Rd - they obviously came from Slade Camp - but where were they headed? I was 3-4 years old at time - so just remember the noise they made.
ALso - was Slade Camp part of the Cowley Barracks? What was war-time purpose of the Slade Camp? when was it built? After the war it was used - at least until lat 50's (or later) as low-cost housing. I now live in the US - so have no idea what replaced these hopefully long gone structures.

Geof- Tampa Florida

GEOF - These Search Results from the Oxford Mail might be of interest if you haven't seen them -the first few are relevant, the rest not.

I once knew the reason for the need for the camp's use for accommodation, but cannot remember it exactly now; it came up in passing at a lecture or a tutorial when I was a student 20 years ago and the most I knew of Cowley was the inside of the now-departed Moonlight Tandoori and the bike shop across the road.

I digress; from what I dimly remember there were two factors in play - the first was a desire to improve housing elsewhere in Oxford, which led to some rebuilding and a need to rehome people temporarily, and an influx of people into the City - some as the result of losing homes elsewhere (Brum and London, IIRC) and some because they had moved to the City as the result of war work, and needed a place of their own because they'd decided to stay. In many places, abandoned camps were taken over, unauthorised, by people in need of housing (to the point where Nye Bevan attempted to force them out by having gas and water cut off and councils sought to intimidate them); the camps were never going to be used by the War Office (et al) again, and the end result was that the camps gradually became the site for permanent homes as the cities expanded; I think that this was what Oxford Council did with Slade Camp. As I say, treat that as possibly complete rubbish, not least since this discussion occurred in what must have been meant to have been a lecture or tutorial on the feudal system from a college don who lived somewhere in Shotover, but which - as always - went wildly off the point fairly quickly and covered all sorts of stuff, none of which I can properly remember...