Tin Town

A long row of nine small cottages once stood on the west side of Banbury Road, south of the railway line, roughly where the Rowan Road junction is today. For a rent of 2s 6d per week they provided pretty basic accommodation, each cottage having just two rooms, both with earthen floors.

They are shown here with their original thatched roofs, but when the Great Western Railway opened their line in 1910, the risk of sparks or cinders falling from a passing steam engine and setting fire to the thatch was deemed so great that all the cottages were re-roofed with tin sheeting. From then on, the row of cottages became known as ‘Tin Town’.

They were demolished in the 1950s.