Oxford Castle
Oxford Castle
For this award-winning project, we acted as lead pre-planning consultant, with responsibility for masterplanning, conservation and structures before continuing on the project as engineers providing detailed design and construction..
Oxford Castle, at the heart of one of the best known historic cities in the world, has a complex history stretching back over nine centuries, as a royal castle, a seat of county government and -following the English Civil War - a prison. For much of this time the site was closed to visitors behind a 6m high wall.
After the closure of HMP Oxford (1888-1996), HMP Oxford was bought by the Trevor Osborne Property Group, who organised a competition which produced a mixed-use scheme to integrate the site with the rest of the city centre and allow public access to historic buildings and the castle mound.
The complex site is architecturally and archaeologically very sensitive, and the project involved major alterations to listed prison wings to turn them into an award-winning hotel, the construction of new hotel and retail and residential buildings, including one by Dixon Jones, and a visitors’ centre by Panter Hudspith.
Following a £20m project, the former prison was leased to the Malmaison hotel chain, which opened in 2005. The hotel uses original features including metal staircases, cell doors, and the prison atrium. and since opening, the scheme has proved enormously successful, establishing itself as a vibrant new focal point in the heart of Oxford.
Client: The Osborne Group