Northmoor Road is a road in North Oxford

North Oxford

North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the College....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It runs north-south parallel to and east of the Banbury Road

Banbury Road

Banbury Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England, running from St Giles' at the south end, north towards Banbury through the leafy suburb of North Oxford and Summertown, with its local shopping centre. Parallel and to the west is the Woodstock Road, which it meets at the junction with St...

. At the northern end is a junction with Belbroughton Road

Belbroughton Road

Belbroughton Road is a residential road in the suburb of North Oxford, England. The road runs east from Banbury Road. At the other end is Oxford High School, a girls' school. South from the road about half way along is Northmoor Road, where J.R.R. Tolkien lived for a while in the 1930s. At the...

 and to the south is a junction with Bardwell Road

Bardwell Road

Bardwell Road is a road in North Oxford, England, off the Banbury Road.The road is the location of the Dragon School, a well-known preparatory school. The second headmaster, Charles Cotterill Lynam , took a building lease on land to the southeast of Bardwell Road in 1893. In 1894, Lynam's Oxford...

, location of the Dragon School

Dragon School

The Dragon School is a British coeducational, preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877 as the Oxford Preparatory School, or OPS. It is primarily known as a boarding school, although it also takes day pupils...

. Linton Road

Linton Road

Linton Road is a road in North Oxford, England.-Location:At the western end is the Banbury Road. At the eastern end is Wolfson College, a graduate college of the University of Oxford. The road also adjoins Northmoor Road, Charlbury Road and Chadlington Road.Linton Lodge Hotel is located in this...

 crosses the road east-west about half way along.

St Andrew's Church

St Andrew's Church, Oxford

St Andrew's Church, Oxford is an evangelical, bible-teaching Church of England parish church in Oxford, England. It was consecrated in 1907 and is located on the southeast corner of Linton Road and Northmoor Road in the suburb of North Oxford.-History:...

, established in 1907, is on the southeast corner of the junction with Linton Road. Just to the north is Northmoor Place, a row of newer terrace houses. Most of the houses in Northmoor Road are substantial detached residences, built between 1899 and 1930. Many of the earliest houses at the southern end were designed by Harry Wilkinson Moore

Harry Wilkinson Moore

Harry Wilkinson Moore, FRIBA was a Victorian and Edwardian architect. He was the son of Arthur Moore and Mary Wilkinson , and a nephew of the architects George Wilkinson and William Wilkinson.-Career:...

 (1850–1915).

Notable residents

The most famous resident of Northmoor Road was the Oxford academic and author J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

. He lived at No. 22 in 1926–30 and then a larger house at No. 20 in 1930–47. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit

The Hobbit

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...

and most of The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

while living at 20 Northmoor Road. There is now a blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

 on the house. He later lived at Sandfield Road

Sandfield Road

Sandfield Road is a road in the suburb of Headington, Oxford, England. It is close to the John Radcliffe Hospital.- Notable residents :Hugo Dyson, a member of the Oxford literary group called the Inklings, lived at 32 Sandfield Road until his death in 1975....

 in Headington

Headington

Headington is a suburb of Oxford, England. It is at the top of Headington Hill overlooking the city in the Thames Valley below. The life of the large residential area is centred upon London Road, the main road between London and Oxford.-History:...

.

Another resident was Sir Martin Wood

Martin Wood (engineer)

Sir Martin Francis Wood, CBE, FRS was co-founder of Oxford Instruments, one of the first spin-out companies from the University of Oxford and still one of the most successful....

, who set up his company, Oxford Instruments

Oxford Instruments

Oxford Instruments plc is a United Kingdom manufacturing and research company that designs and manufactures tools and systems for industry and research. The company is headquartered in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, with sites in the United Kingdom, United States, Europe, and Asia...

, in his garden shed at his house in Northmoor Road. Oxford Instruments went on to become a leading company in medical technology. Later, in the 1980s, Wood founded the Northmoor Trust

Northmoor Trust

The Northmoor Trust was set up in 1969 by the British engineer Sir Martin Wood to promote environmental conservation through land management, education and land science...

, aimed at promoting nature conservation at Little Wittenham

Little Wittenham

Little Wittenham is a village and civil parish on the south bank of the River Thames, northeast of Didcot in South Oxfordshire. It has one of only 220 habitats across Europe which is designated as a Special Area of Conservation under the European Union's Habitats Directive , on the Conservation of...

 and Wittenham Clumps

Wittenham Clumps

Wittenham Clumps is the commonly used name for a set of small hills in the flat Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham in the English county of Oxfordshire....

 in the Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

 countryside south of Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

.

Charles Firth, Professor of History

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, lived at No. 2 Northmoor Road, a distinctive house with a two-storey bow-front, designed by E. W. Allfrey in 1903–8.
The house is in the Queen Anne style.
The Oxford University historian of science, Professor Margaret Gowing

Margaret Gowing

Professor Margaret Gowing, CBE, was an English historian.- Overview :Margaret Gowing was involved with the production of several volumes of the officially sponsored History of the Second World War, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office in conjunction with Longman's, Green and Co...

, CBE (1921–1998), lived in Northmoor Road towards the end of her life.

External links

• Outside 20 Northmoor Road (360° view)
• Outside 22 Northmoor Road (360° view)