T. Lawrence Dale

[3] In the war he was commissioned as an officer in an infantry battalion, but when he was placed in reserve he successfully applied to transfer to the Army Cyclist Corps to see active service.

[2] In the 1920s Dale spent "a delightful year" working on "an exceedingly complicated planning problem" as a competitor in a worldwide architectural competition to design the new Freemasons' Grand Temple in Great Queen Street in London.

[2] Some time thereafter he moved to Oxford, where he designed the modest neo-Georgian house that was built for him and his family at 358 Woodstock Road.

[7] Simon Dale later lost his sight, was divorced in 1972, and in 1987 was beaten to death at The Heath, the house that he and Susan had restored at Hopton Castle.

[8] The roof and almost all of the walls are hung with wooden shingles,[8] possibly in response to the shortage of many types of building material after the Second World War.

However, whereas Ponting continued to work in the Gothic Revival idiom long after it had passed out of fashion,[11] Dale adopted Italianate architecture for his churches.

With the exception of St. Francis of Assisi (which is stuccoed) they are built of a modern buff brick that contrasts with traditional building materials in this part of England.

The tympanum at St. Alban the Martyr was carved by John Brookes,[16] then Principal of Oxford City Technical College.

In 1948 Sharp published his report as a book, Oxford Replanned, in which he paid tribute: Mr. Dale has presented his case very attractively and wittily, and has done the city a considerable service in braving the controversy which was bound to result from any attempt to touch even the hem of the sacred Christ Church Meadow.

[20]However, Sharp also thought that Dale's "Christ Church Mall" would be too indirect, particularly for traffic from Headington Hill and Marston Road.

[22] The Times also commended Dale for "presenting his case with architectural vision, wit and eloquence" in Towards a Plan for Oxford City, and quoted Dale's vision that "a finely designed parkway" would be "A beautiful road between the Towers and the Thames severally dreaming and streaming".

[6] In 1956 the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation held an enquiry at which Dale continued to make his case.

Dale told the enquiry: nobody more than he admired the beauty of Christ Church Meadow, and anyone who wanted a road through it was a vandal.

[23]Dale cited in his support Professor Sir Albert Richardson, then president of the Royal Academy, who "had said, in 1944, that Christ Church Meadow would suffer no detriment if skirted by a tree-lined road".