TOURISTS ambling past the Cooper Callas building on Paradise Street are advised to pack their cameras back in their bumbags.

Boarded up for nearly a decade, the 1961 carbuncle sits vandalised under the shade of Oxford Castle’s Norman tower.

The only glimmer of activity is a lone flyer for a drum and bass night, which flaps on its unloved façade. But walk on a few yards.

Here you can be taken back by the sudden, unexpected delight of St Thomas Street. The Victorian old horse hospital and Brewery gate pub announce what is to follow.

The street’s sweeping curve is dominated by red brick, three-storey buildings, jagged rooflines and gabled windows.

Savvy architects, such as those of Corpus Christi’s new Lampl building, knowingly ape the scheme.

Others simply preserve the contours of the ancient street pattern with Jackson Cole House, Bookbinders’ Court and the Old Bakery all following the line.

The ensemble winds nicely until, peering down the far end, you come face to face with the 12th century church of St Thomas the Martyr.

It’s easy to unravel the logic of this street. God, up at the top end. The horses in their hospital kept as far away as possible.

I admit, they aren’t the most remarkable buildings in the city. But as you walk along the street you get a sense the neighbourhood this once was.

A high street, a main thoroughfare, with an atmosphere of its own. A place where life happened. The effect springs off the 1887 horse hospital, which accommodated horses who pulled Morrells’ Brewery drays, and the 1896 pub.

They are among the very few buildings on St Thomas Street to evade slum clearance. They are the only tangible link to a vast, unruly slab of Oxford history in a street rich with nefarious activity.

Here stood over 20 Victorian lodging houses such as Cousins’, whose resident pack of scavengers, navvies and prostitutes and Italian organ grinders were forever in trouble with the law.

Now preserved as private housing, the Brewery Gate has the distinction of being the only remaining pub building. A book of photographs reproduces an image of these two buildings in 1913, praising how little they have changed.

But things may change soon. A laminated yellow demolition notice has appeared, tacked to a drainpipe outside the pub.

The London developer who presented plans to knock them down, and build a sprawling multi-storey hotel, probably doesn’t know any better. It has been suggested the development could be limited to the Cooper Callas site, without the wanton destruction of buildings.

Historic England, Oxford Preservation Trust, The Victorian Society, Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society, Oxford Civic Society and Oxford Castle have all opposed the demolition. But this may not be enough.

The public have until Thursday to raise objections, via the council’s website public.oxford.gov.uk.

These buildings may be a tiny detail on the map, but they have a big story to tell.