CHRIS KOENIG looks at the history of a demolished and versatile Art Deco delight

Succeeding generations move into each other's buildings much as the guests at the March Hare's Tea Party moved round the table - with all except the Mad Hatter inheriting the used crockery of his predecessor.

In 1947 the manufacturers of Frank Cooper's famous Oxford Marmalade moved into the old ice rink building in Botley Road, which stood where the nondescript Halfords premises now stands.

It was a wondrous Art Deco construction, built in 1930, in a sort of Regal Cinema style which until recently people loved to hate - but which has since come back into fashion.

In its early days the old ice rink staged figure skating displays, with top performers and ice hockey matches, too. Indeed, in 1930 Oxford University beat Germany there 3-1 in a much-talked-about contest.

Already by 1933, though, the place was feeling the financial pinch.

That summer it opened as a cinema, with Mae West playing I'm No Angel. It re-opened as an ice rink in the winter of 1933-1934. Then it became the Majestic Picture Palace until the marmalade makers moved in.

In 1874, the grocer Frank Cooper began selling marmalade in earthenware pots at his shop at 84 High Street, Oxford, after his wife, Sarah Jane, had made too much of the stuff (76lb to be precise) for the family's own use.

As Seville oranges come into season, modern marmalade makers might be interested to learn that she made her chunky variety according to a recipe she had learned from her mother.

Undergraduates and dons (probably including the creator of the Mad Hatter, Lewis Carroll) took to it immediately.

Indeed, it soon became the preserve of the Victorian breakfast table all over the British Empire.

Such was its success that in 1900 Frank Cooper moved his cauldrons into that funny old edifice called Victoria Building, then a purpose-built marmalade works, which still stands in what is now called Frideswide Square (opposite the Said Business School), and houses, among other things, a restaurant called the Jam Factory.

Not that any self-respecting Victorian would have called marmalade jam! Nor would he or she ever have considered having any other preserve than marmalade for breakfast - though few probably realised that even applying the word to something made of oranges was a misnomer.

The word marmalade is derived from the Portugese for quince marmelada. Perhaps quince marmelade came to Britain with the Portugese wife of Charles 11, Catherine of Braganza, or earlier?

However that may have been, Frank Coopers went on making marmalade at the ice rink until 1967 when the company was taken over by Midlands firm Brown & Polson.

Ice skating in Oxford came to a halt (except in such places as Port Meadow, which frequently flooded and froze over in those days) between 1947 and 1985 when the Oxpens rink opened.

Marmalade production moved first to Wantage in 1967 and then to Manchester, where it is still made. Premier Foods acquired the brand last year and now there is talk - wait for it - of moving the brand to Cambridgeshire!

As for the original rink, it was demolished, as tends to happen when a certain style goes out of fashion. Sometimes, it seems, a guest at the tea party moves into his predecessor's place and throws away the crockery, replacing it with something more modern.

But would anyone ever suggest preserving (listing) the present unlovely occupant of the site? Perhaps they will.