35

This is the page for 35 Cowley Road.

<< 33 37>>

2017

2017

This is now a residential property.

1980s

When the Uhuru wholefood business  moved across the road, the building was used as a women's centre and accommodated helplines which included Rape Crisis, Lesbian Line and Oxford Friend.  As well as holding weekly women only discos, there was also a brief period of time when there was a women's only cafe, but the building by this time was becoming increasingly unsafe with rickety stairs and crumbling plaster complete with a spidery outside lavatory!   Many of the women were very politically active and organised Reclaim the Night marches and support for the Greenham Common camp, as well as producing the women's magazines, Lillith, which was sold in local newsagents.  The glass front of the Women's Centre was still as seen in the photo below, and Disco attendees were not safe from late night drunken youths trying to force entry.  The Women's Centre disco disbanded once Jackie Sunderland and Kim Williams started up the Early Gaze Disco in the Coop Hall (at 190 Cowley Road), now the O2 Academy.  Shortly after this, in the late eighties, the building was renovated and made into a men only Mind House.  Oh the irony!

1975

1975: Uhuru Wholefoods shop. Linda Lumb (left) and John Clark (right) were members of the co-op. Photo by Jane Kilpatrick.

This was the Uhuru wholefoods co-op, before it moved across the road to its current location. The shop unit has now been demolished, and large cherry trees now grow on the spot shown in the photo. The tall man on the right in the photo is John Clarke who used a windfall to found Uhuru, but gave over control to the Uhuru Collective. It was a cafe and a shop for 3rd world crafts. The wholefood sales had been a buyer's co-op in Wellington Square since the late 1960s, it was passed on to Uhuru. A photo from 1974 can be seen here.

Jane Kilpatrick took the photo above and was a member of the Workers' Co-operative who owned and managed Uhuru. 2 other members of the Co-op are also in the photo, John Clark (R) and Linda nee Viney (L) now Lumb. John was one of the founding members in 1973, by 1975 there were about 6 or 8 people. The shop sold crafts from co-operatives in the developing world (using fair trade principles) and whole foods. The cafe sold cheap and cheerful vegetarian food, and welcomed many customers other establishments would have thrown out. After hours it was used for meetings of political groups like Oxford Women’s Liberation. The shop over the road at 48 Cowley Rd was rented from the City Council by Uhuru in 1976 so that the whole foods could be expanded and to make more room for the cafe in No 35. Uhuru started selling Campaign Coffee which they imported from a Co-operative manufacturing instant coffee in Tanzania. Uhuru also started packaging the whole foods with information about their country of origin and the conditions of the workers etc.

There is a history of the early days of Uhuru, called ‘A Working Collective’ written by members of the collective - does anyone have a copy for reference? Annie Skinner’s history of the Cowley Rd is also a record of that era and Uhuru’s development.

 

1950s

There used to be a greengrocer's shop here

Before then?

Cowleyroad.org is a DIY community history - help us write it! Do you know more about this business, or remember what was at this address before? Do you have any old photographs or memories to share? Please add them to the site! Here is a how-to guide.