This shows the ‘Collection’ end of this famous removal job by the family firm. Perhaps the most famous job the firm ever did. This drawing shows the august building, that adjoins Blackwells Bookshop, in its 1930s surroundings, with authentic then-current cars on the streets in suitable-to-the-time small numbers. The Sheldonian is just visible on the LHS. The pub on the corner of Keble Road and Holywell Street is just visible at the RHS (is that the pub?), and is famous in family folklore as Uncle Arthur’s Sunday-lunchtime retreat for a ‘well-earned’ bit of weekend relaxation, where his younger brother Fred was never wont to accompany him.
In this view, we are looking westwards, the length of Broad Street, towards George Street (Broad Street’s continuation after crossing Cornmarket), where, in the 1940s Boswells was on the ‘Broad/Cornmarket’ corner, and Taphouse’s Music shop was on the diagonally-opposite corner, with Elliston & Cavell’s department store alongside Taphouse's and facing the church alongside the Martyr’s Memorial on the opposite side of Cornmarket.
Archer Cowley’s vans would have driven north along Parks Road a few hundred yards, and then turned right into South Parks Road to reach the delivery-site somewhere along that road towards the entrance to the University Parks, where a gravel path leads directly to ‘Mesopotamia' and its Parson’s Pleasure and Dames Delight open-air bathing places in the Cherwell river. The driving time in clear traffic would have been less than five minutes. Click here to go to a modern road map showing these details.