Oxford's Cutteslowe estate had a Berlin Wall and now Rose Hill has a Brandenburg Gate.

People living in the Rose Hill estate say they are being barred from the posh area of Iffley next door because the University has locked them out.

For decades, they have walked to nearby Iffley village through a gate at Court Place Gardens a student accommodation block.

But the University, which owns the site, has now started to lock the gate denying Rose Hill residents easy access to Iffley village.

Residents have likened the gate to the wall that was built in Cutteslowe between the poor council estate and the rich private homes. Vimal Rodrigo, aged 68, of Rivermead Road, Rose Hill, has been fighting to get the gate opened for three years and now wants to apply to make the route a public right of way.

He said: "The University is taking advantage of the fact that they did not submit detailed plans when they got planning permission for the block.

"There is a principle at stake here.

Why should the University, which is so rich, stop us going to Iffley.

"People in this area want to go there to go to the church, to visit the graveyard, to go to the shop, and the river.

"When the gate is open it takes five minutes.

"When the gate is locked we have to go the long way round which is about 20 minutes."

No-one from Oxford University was available to comment. *'Snob walls' were a disgrace: The Cutteslowe Walls built to separate a private estate from council houses have entered Oxford folklore as one of the most infamous us and them incidents in the city's history.

The snob walls 9ft high and topped with iron spikes were put up across two streets by a developer in 1934 to separate the private part of the north Oxford estate from the council houses.

The walls cut the council tenants' direct access into the city via Banbury Road.

Four years later, the city council took direct action, demolishing the walls with a steam roller only to be ordered to rebuild them after a High Court row. The saga finally ended in 1959 after the city council paid 1,000 for the land the walls stood on, and demolished them.

City estates committee chairman Edmund Gibbs said: "This is the end of a disgraceful chapter in Oxford's history."