The Plough Pub and Restaurant Wolvercote, Oxford

History of The Plough

Reference from An Encyclopaedia of Oxford Pubs, Inns and Taverns (by Derek Honey).

Strictly not an Oxford pub, but the village of Wolvercote is so close, with only the upper reaches of Port Meadow separating it from the city, it has been included in this book. A large country pub opposite Wolvercote Green, with a pleasant atmosphere, though it was not always so.

In the first decade of the 20th Century it was notorious as a bargee pub (the Oxford canal being close by), who fought amongst themselves regularly, It always had some connection with the river and water, with models of sailing ships and stuffed fish in glass boxes hanging on the bar, Once it had a parrot in a cage hanging on the bar, whose language was more suited to the bargee pub. Always busy in summer, with customers from Oxford enjoying the view of Port Meadow. Reputed to be haunted, but as the stables of the pub were once used as a temporary morgue after a train crash, this is not surprising.

On the morning of Christmas eve 1874, the train from Paddington to Birkenhead was so filled with passengers that an extra carriage was put on at Reading, and a further, much older coach at Oxford. There was ice on the rails and after it reached Kidlington the old coach began to rock dangerously. As it reached the canal bridge on of the wheels collapsed causing this coach and 12 others to leave the track and down the embankment. In all 34 people were killed and over 100 injured. Those dead were transported to the Plough in farm carts and laid to rest until the Oxford morgue could take then after Christmas. Of the injured 47 were taken to the John Radcliffe Infirmary, its first major large scale emergency.