The High Street in Oxford, running between Carfax and Magdalen Bridge, has been described by acclaimed architectural critic Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘one of the world’s great streets’.

In 1974, he wrote: “The High Street is one of the world’s great streets. It has everything.”

Today it is home to shops, restaurants and hotels, including The Old Bank and The Ivy.

But it also reflects the city’s history, including one Oxford college’s connections with the slave trade.

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And a walk along The High from Carfax will soon reveal Oriel’s connections with Cecil Rhodes.

Set off from Carfax and walk along the right hand side until you reach King Edward Street.

Oxford Mail: The plaque in King Edward Street off High Street

Turn into the street, look up to your right, and you will see a plaque dedicated to Rhodes.

The bronze plaque, located on the outside wall of number 6, King Edward Street, commemorates the fact that Cecil Rhodes lived at that address in 1881.

The plaque, erected in 1906 four years after Rhodes’ death, is owned by the college at which Rhodes studied.

Then walk down The High to Oriel College itself, the focus of a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020.

Oxford Mail:

At the height of the pandemic, thousands of people including students packed into the High Street to lobby Oriel to remove the statue of Rhodes facing the street.

But so far, the college has not yet bowed to public pressure.

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In the summer, Oriel College said its statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes would not be taken down.

Calls to remove the memorial at the college were reignited in 2020 after a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was torn down in Bristol.

Oxford Mail:

A commission set up to examine the Rhodes statue’s future said the “majority” of its members supported its removal.

But Oriel College then said it would not seek to move the statue due to costs and ‘complex’ planning processes.

Campaigners say Rhodes, a 19th century businessman and politician in southern Africa, represented white supremacy and was steeped in colonialism and racism.

He had been a student at Oriel and left £100,000 - about £12.5m in today’s money - to the college through his will in 1902. About £200,000 still remains.

Oriel’s governing body said in June last year it wished to remove the statue, a decision it said was backed by the independent commission appointed to examine its future and Rhodes’ legacy.

Oxford Mail:

However, the college concluded after considering ‘regulatory and financial challenges’ it had decided not to begin the legal process to move it.

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The college said the ‘challenges and costs’ of removing the statue in terms of heritage and planning consent could take years with no certainty of the outcome.