Current demographics about the Leys (e.g. age distribution, ethnic groups, crime levels) can be found on the Neighbourhood Statistics website.
- The Leys is one of the largest housing estates in Europe, and the largest in Oxford.
- Blackbird Leys was built on farmland and the site of a sewage farm.
- Windrush Tower was opened on the 9th of April 1962, by the Mayor of Oxford, Alderman Lionel Harrison.
- Over 10% of the Blackbird Leys population are from ethnic minority groups.
- The site of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church was originally intended for a pub.
- Blackbird Leys was declared a parish in 1991.
- The construction of Blackbird Leys started in 1958.
- The earliest settlement in Oxford was found in Blackbird Leys. The Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age site, consisting of pits and roundhouses, was dated by a cylindrical loom-weight decorated with an impressed cord pattern.
- The site where Evenlode Tower stands was originally the location of Sawpit Cottages.
- The very first houses occupied in Blackbird Leys were 23-33 Sandy Lane.
- One of the properties in Blackbird Leys originally had a swimming pool and tennis court.
- The roads connected to Field Avenue were named alphabetically, from Andromeda Close to Woodruff Close.
- Jack Argent was the Holy Family Church warden and chairman of the Blackbird Leys community centre. His name lives on with the Jack Argent memorial bench in Cuddesdon Way, and Jack Argent Close in Greater Leys.
- The KKK - Kiddies Kinema Klub - was started in the 1970s. It was originally intended for children aged between 5 and 9, but later developed into the Cinema Club for older children and teenagers.
- Jubilee Hall and the Jubilee '77 Association are named after the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.
- The Community Association organised 'qualidays' - quarterly events that would give senior citizens on the estate a 'taste of the good life'.
- The number of households in the Leys that own home computers is lower than the rest of Oxford.
- The Leys has far more children and single parents, and far fewer elderly people, than the average for Oxfordshire or the UK.
- The number of households that own video recorders, microwave ovens and tumble dryers is notably higher in the Leys than in Oxford City, possibly due to the number of families with children in the estate.
- The Leys has the highest Caribbean population in Oxford.
- A quarter of the buses arriving into Oxford's city centre originate from the Leys.
- By September 1967, Redefield Secondary School was so crowded that lessons were held in the youth club coffee bar, and rooms in Windrush and Evenlode Towers.
- The Bullnose Morris pub is believed to be the only one named after a car.
- Prince Charles visited Blackbird Leys in 1994.
- The first school on the estate was Blackbird Leys County Primary, opened on 14 September 1959.
- The Blackbird Gymnasts performed on Blue Peter a number of times, their first appearance being 20 December 1965.
- Blackbird Leys was developed on the site of Sawpit Farm, but took the name from the more poetic Blackbird Leys Farm.
- Blackbird Leys Farm was previously known as Blackford Leys Farm and Blackbridge Leaze Farm.
- Oxford United's football stadium was originally situated at The Manor Ground in Headington.
- Windale First School was opened on Friday 8th March 1996 by Jeremy Irons.
- A house in Blackbird Leys was said to be haunted in the 1980s, by a 'very sweet looking lady' who would appear in the vicinity of a particular chair. The family eventually had the chair removed and then burnt, and she was never seen again.
- To commemorate the 21 years he worked at Shepherd's Hill School as headmaster, Cecil Jacob commissioned the palindromic inscription of 'Niyonanomhmatamhmonanoyin' on the church font - 'wash my transgressions, not only my face'.
- After rejecting thirty unsuitable sites (and submitting twelve planning applications), Oxford United's new stadium was finally built in Minchery Farm, near Greater Leys.
- Some of the joy-riding stunts in the infamous 1991 riots were allegedly paid for by TV companies looking for good footage.