In 1875, at the age of 25, Thomas Henry Kingerlee took over his father’s plumbing and glazing firm while living at 5 Butchers Row in Banbury. This marked the beginning of a long and distinguished family business.

By the time of the 1881 census, Thomas described himself as a master builder, employing 20 people, a reflection of the firm’s early growth and rising reputation.
In the following years, the business expanded into general building and contracting, earning a reputation for quality workmanship across Oxfordshire.

In 1884, one of Thomas’s first major commissions in Oxford was the construction of a new isolation hospital for infectious diseases at Cold Harbour, a mile south of the city along the Abingdon Road.

By 1889, Thomas had established himself as a respected figure in the city. He was elected Mayor of Oxford for 1898–99, and again for 1911–12. By 1900, he had become Oxford’s largest housebuilder and landlord, holding considerable influence within the community.

In 1903, Kingerlee built Frank Cooper’s Marmalade Factory, a building that still stands today and is now listed.

In 1911, Kingerlee constructed the Oxford Picture Palace on Jeune Street, which remains the city’s oldest surviving cinema.

By 1928, when Thomas Kingerlee passed away, the business had already entered its second generation. His two sons and a grandson had joined the company, continuing its work across building, joinery, and merchant operations.

In 1930, Kingerlee built the Oxford Ice Rink on Botley Road, one of the largest single-span buildings in the country at the time.

By the mid-1930s the company had built over 700 new houses throughout Oxford’s suburbs, making it by far the city’s largest developer.

During the war Kingerlee built various MoD facilities around Oxfordshire, and joinery production continued. Kingerlee carried out extensive work at Wolvercote Paper Mill until the mid-1950s.

In the late 1950s the building at the top of the High Street, next to Lloyds Bank, was demolished by Kingerlee, the buildings either side propped, and a new building for supermarket International Stores was built.

Kingerlee carried out work at the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Midland Bank (now HSBC) in central Oxford. Kingerlee are now carrying out works for All Souls college in this same area.

The joinery workshop moved to Lamarsh Road (off the Botley Road) in 1958. By 1962 Kingerlee’s head office had moved from Queen Street to Lamarsh Road to join the joinery works.

During the latter part of the century the company concentrated on general contracting, playing its part in rebuilding after the Second World War.
The construction of the paint shop at Pressed steel was the first Kingerlee project worth over £1m.

Kingerlee did a lot of work at Blenheim Palace and throughout the 1960s and ‘70s we still had a team of painters and plumbers permanently on site. A project to stabilise the Palace’s South West Tower was carried out in 1977.

Kingerlee did a lot of work at Blenheim Palace and throughout the 1960s and ‘70s we still had a team of painters and plumbers permanently on site. A project to stabilise the Palace’s South West Tower was carried out in 1977.

Kingerlee completed extensive work at Lloyds Bank on Carfax (below) in central
Oxford. Not far from the High Street project that Kingerlee are currently undertaking.

Kingerlee carried out a £1m extension at Headington School (pictured in an article at the time) plus a series of projects for the Dragon School during the 1980s, where Kingerlee recently returned to build a state-of-the-art music school.

In 1981 Kingerlee built an office block at Cambridge Terrace (left) on St Ebbe’s in Oxford. Unfortunately the drain survey was inaccurate which caused the team to accidently pile into the Trill Mill Stream, a historic underground waterway running beneath the city. However, they were able to repair the damage and the waterway still exists today. The Cambridge Terrace project later went on to win awards for brickwork excellence.

In 1987 Kingerlee built the St Anne’s College boathouse, the last boathouse on what is known as ‘boathouse island’ on the eastern bank of the River Thames in Oxford. A temporary bridge was built
to get machinery, materials and labour to the project, and other supplies were brought in by barge. Pictured are Neale Harrison, labourer, and John Fathers, project foreman, unloading a barge carrying roof timbers.

In 1988 Kingerlee built the BBC Radio Oxford studios in Summertown.

In 1995 Kingerlee built the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building for St Hilda’s College in Oxford. The building was tested for acoustic performance and achieved exceptionally high standards, the first time newly-introduced testing had been carried out on a Kingerlee project.

A large amount of joinery was produced for the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building for St Hilda’s College in Oxford the photo shows joinery manager at the time, Dennis Hedges, on the front cover of the University Magazine talking about the joinery element of this impressive building.

In 1999, named after Kingerlee Founder, Thomas Henry Kingerlee, Kingerlee constructed a brand new purpose-built premises, with extensive yard and joinery workshop facilities, at Langford Locks, Kidlington. Thomas House, their home to this day.

Since the move to Kidlington the profile of the business grew, leading to a number of major projects. These included: office and residential developments at the former Morrell’s Brewery site and the Stream Edge site in St Thomas’s in Oxford, where Kingerlee completed a residential development in 2006.

Terry Hart, Jon Halliwell, Keith Shackleton, Paul Rolston and Sam Brown prepare to install an Anthony Gormley statue on the roof of Blackwell’s music shop on Broad Street, Oxford, on 15 February 2009, for Exeter College.

In 2018 Michael Puttick retired & Darren Arekion was appointed as Managing Director. He leads the company to this day.

In 2025 Kingerlee were named both Contractor of the Year at the OXPROP awards and SME of the Year at the Constructing Excelence Awards. It is an honor to be recogniser for our dedication to qulity construction.

In 2025 Kingerlee completed a refurbishment of it's Thomas House offices. A well desered refresh of it's home since 1999. Caried out by Kingerlee Special Porjects and well recieved by all at the company.

In 2025 our Chairman David Kingerlee, 5th genration of the Kingerlee family, celebrated 45 years with the company. Congratulations and what a mile stone!