Photos by Hannah Livesey-Ingham
The Headington Shark was a building designed to annoy the neighbours. You can imagine the situation: Nice quiet suburb of Oxford. Victorian terraces all being bought up and done up in a rising property market. Then some clown goes and put a sky-diving fibre glass shark through his roof during the night. It was going down, certainly, but not well with the neighbours.
The enormous fibre glass shark, created by sculptor John Buckley, was erected on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in August 1986, designed to express the anger, desperation and impotence of ordinary people in the face of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. It created a storm.
Oxford city council tried to get it taken down on the grounds that it was unsafe. Unfortunately for them, structural engineers gave it the all clear. They then tried to get rid of it on the grounds that it didn’t have planning consent but the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, came out in its favour as a work of art, albeit unconventional. And so it remained.
Whilst it’s quite fun to say you have been inside, the building, itself is in fact, nothing special. Just a nice white clean Victorian Terrace, which hosts occasional art exhibitions.
Perhaps the most bizarre twist to the story and a sad reflection on how we all become more conventional in middle age, is that there is currently a planning application lodged with the City Council to take the shark down for repairs.
For a drink afterwards, the Royal Standard is just on the corner, offering good food, wines and beers as well as tea and coffee.
Must See Buildings of Britain is an occasional series on Britain’s most remarkable buildings. Not only the stately homes, palaces and monuments that are part of every tourist itinerary but buildings that are simply worth seeing. Some are well known – although not necessarily for their architecture. Some are less well known – undiscovered gems that are worth a look. Some will take several hours to visit properly; others are not open to the public but merit a few minutes to look at the from the outside.
Must See Buildings has a sister column, Beastly Buildings, which looks at those buildings we all love to hate
If you know a building you think we should cover, email the editor, charlotte@donowdo.com