Woodstock: Buildings

Buildings

Quitrents imposed on the town's original burgages survived until the 1930s. They were listed in a survey of 1279 and as 'the king's rents' in 1468-9. (fn. 48) Later the corporation acquired the quitrents (fn. 49) and listed them annually with its other rents. Rentals survive for 1598, 1602, 1609-18, 1652, 1654, 1684, and for most years from 1733. (fn. 50) Until 1764 their arrangement was partly topographical, as was that of the late 18th-century land tax assessments and the census returns of 1841-81. (fn. 51) The descent of many sites may therefore be traced, and identification is aided by a valuation of c. 1910 listing owners and tenants of all Woodstock houses. (fn. 52) The following account of sites of particular note is based on those sources.

1. Nos. 8-12 Oxford Street

Bought in 1587 with Richard Cornwell's bequest for the grammar school, were transferred to the corporation in 1599 and usually granted on long leases to provide the bulk of the school's income. (fn. 53) No. 8 belonged to Thomas Croft in 1477 and was later part of his endowment of St. Margaret's chantry, dispersed after 1551. (fn. 54) The house was occupied by the schoolmaster in 1609 and later let to trandesman. (fn. 55) It was the New Angel inn by the 1760s (fn. 56) and was still so in 1856 when the lease was taken by the brewers Wootten 8 Co. The building was extended in 1857 and turned into a private house in 1871-2. (fn. 57)

Nos. 10-12 formed a single holding in 1587, described as the White Hart inn and a little adjoining house; an attached close on the east was in Hensington field and the borough boundary ran though no. 12 until modern times. (fn. 58) In the 1460s part of the site was held with 2 a. in Hensington by Alderman John Carryk, whose neighbour on the north, John Haynes, was probably ancesor of Thomas Castell alias Haynes, who owned the whole in the mid 16th century. (fn. 59) The White Hart inn was charged with 6s. 8d. rent to St. Mary's chantry which was paid to the corporation after 1565. (fn. 60) In 1592 the school trustees let no. 12, called the White Hart but no longer an inn, to Anthony Noble, curate and possibly schoolmaster, and in 1602 Noble was compensated for the loss of part of his parlour, which had been taken into the corporation's 'new building where the schoolhouse was', presumably the site of no. 10 Oxford Street. (fn. 61) Simon Jeames, schoolmaster, occupied no. 12 in the 1620s but later 17th-century lessees were tradesmen. (fn. 62) By the early 18th century the house was an inn, the Pied Bull, (fn. 63) and remained so until acquired c. 1802 by Joseph Brooks, who opened a bank there in 1805. On his death in 1807 the lease was bought by Oxford bankers Cox, Morrell, 8 Co., (fn. 64) who held it until c. 1850; from 1829 they sublet the rear of the house as a girls' boarding school and probably closed the bank in the early 1840s. (fn. 65) The house was the grammer school and master's house from c. 1851 until c. 1901. (fn. 66) In the 1950s it was turned into a public house, the Old Pyed Bull, renamed the Punch Bowl in the 1970s. (fn. 67)

No. 10 was let separately after its rebuilding in the early 17th century; a tenant before 1646 was James Keene, belfounder. (fn. 68) In 1746 the house was described as lately rebuilt, and Joseph Brooks, lessee from c. 1769, added a bow window. (fn. 69) The Money family bought the lease in 1808 (fn. 70) and manufactured gloves there until moving to no. 14 Oxford Street in the mid 19th century. The house was briefly a police station from 1859 and gloving continued there later. (fn. 71)

All three houses contain work of the earlier 18th century, with later additions; no. 10 is distinguished by a fine shell hood, panelled doors, and an ornate staircase. (fn. 72)

2. Site of Woodstock union workhouse

The workhouse was built in 1836-7 on land formerly part of Hensington manor bought from Benjamin Holloway. (fn. 73) The architect was George Wilkinson of Witney and the contractors Messrs. Wyatt of Oxford. (fn. 74) The stone buildiing was on a square plan around two courtyards and cost £4,800. (fn. 75) West and east wings were added to the entrance block in 1859 and a detached laundry block on the north-east in 1860. The original building contained a room for a chapel, but a separate stone chapel in 13th-century style, designed by G. E. Street, was built on the east in 1863; land and stone were supplied by the duke of Marlborough and the building cost only £495. The chapel served as a mortuary chapel for the cemetery opened in that year. (fn. 76) A large brick infirmary block was built on the north in 1891-3. (fn. 77) From 1930 the former workhouse was a home for the elderly, Hensington House. Most of the buildings were demolished in 1969 and the chapel in 1973. (fn. 78)

3. Nos. 14-16 Oxford Street

The site was a 6d. burgage, divided before 1279 into two tenements paying 4½d. and 1½d. (fn. 79) In the later 17th century Miles Parker was paying 4½d. for the site of no. 14 Oxford Street. Parker (d. 1719), malster and mayor, was closely concerned in the Blenheim building works as receiver general of taxes in Oxfordshire. (fn. 80) In 1708 the corporation allowed him an encroachment for his new house, so that it might 'range along even with his malthouse towards Hensington'. (fn. 81) The new house, completed in 1709, (fn. 82) was alleged to have been built with Blenheim Stone. (fn. 83) The house and malthouse remained in the Parker family until 1773, passed to Thomas Baker, maltster, and from 1788 belonged to the Churchill family, cabinet makers and auctioneers. (fn. 84) On the death of Benjamin Churchchill in 1840 nos. 14 and 16 were sold to H. T. T. Palmer, surgeon and mayor (d. 1864), who seems to have lived at no. 16. (fn. 85) No. 14 was a private school under the name of Hope House in the 1840s and early 1850s, (fn. 86) and was taken over by the Money family, glovers, in the late 1850s when they left no. 10 Oxford Street. (fn. 87) The Moneys, owners in 1987, used the former malthouse as a glove factory until the 1930s. (fn. 88)

The front range of Hope House, of three storeys with attics, is in Vanbrughian style, employing arched and segmental windows and blind recess with heavy keystones; the architect is unknown. The two-storeyed rear wing on Hensington Road is of c. 1720, and the cellar is lit by a 17th century stone-mullioned window. The front was altered c. 1800 by the insertion of an entrance framed in wrought iron and surmounted by a bow window, balanced by a two-storeyed bow window to the south. The interior contains early 18th-century panelling and chimneypieces. The former malthouse range along Hensington road was converted into cottages after the Second World War.

The 1½d. quit rent of the later no. 16 Oxford Street was paid by victuallers in the early 18th century, and by 1728 the house was the Six Bells; (fn. 89) the Bennet family owned at until the later 18th century. (fn. 90) John. Wagstaff, publican 1768-77, had a 'great room' used for lectures, (fn. 91) presumably the club room which Thomas Alderslade, publican 1778-82, used as a theatre. (fn. 92) It may have been the theatre fitted up in 1776 and recorded as Woodstock theatre until 1788. (fn. 93) John Churchill; owner of the Six Bells from c. 1784, turned it into a private house, (fn. 94) occupied for much of the 19th century by medical practitioners. (fn. 95) The house, 17th century in part, was much altered in the 19th century and refronted in the 1950s.

4. Nos. 26-34 Oxford Street (The Marlborough Arms hotel and houses on the north) (fn. 96)

At its height as a coaching inn in the later 18th century the Marlborough Arms included the two houses on the north (Fox House and Fox House Antiques). In 1279 the site of the present hotel ws a 6d. burgage held by Adam Bennet, and in 1468, as 'le Palys inn with the sign of St. George', was acquired by Thomas Croft. (fn. 97) The George inn was among the endowments of Croft's chantry in Woodstock church which were sold by the Crown in 1549. (fn. 98) John Meades (d. 1587) acquired the George in 1576 and partly rebuilt it; (fn. 99) in 1637-8 his grandson John sold the reversion of a 100-year lease to Balliol College, Oxford, which became sole owner in 1707.

In 1620 the inn contained at least four first-floor chambers, and three presumably grander chambers called the Bear, Falcon, and Dove. (fn. 1) Balliol's lessees, John Smith, gentleman (1658- 93), Benjamin Johnson, mercer (1693-1715), and Edward Ryves, town clerk, seem to have sublet the inn, and it may have been the unidentified 8-hearth inn of John Caldicott (d. 1667) and John and Jane Gibbs (d. 1686, 1692). (fn. 2) From 1723, when Gabriel Brown became innkeeper, the George prospered; in 1738 Edward Harley, earl of Oxford, found it 'a very good house'. (fn. 3) Brown (d. 1739) was succeeded by his wife Anne and nephew William (both d. 1753) and William's relict Sarah (d. 1791). (fn. 4)

The hotel was extended in a stages during the 18th century. In the 1750s Sarah Brown bought the freehold of the former Plough to the north, which included the later nos. 30-4 Oxford Street; (fn. 5) the Browns were occupying part of the site by 1740 and No. 30 was probably already incorporated into the inn. No. 32 was added later but there is no evidence that no. 34 formed part of the inn.

From 1767 until 1779 Sarah sublet the inn to William Barke, formerly butler to the duke of Marlborough, and it was renamed the Marlborough Arms. (fn. 6) Sarah's daughter and heir Sarah married Alderman Joseph Brooks, on whose death in 1807 she sold to the duke of Marlborough the Balliol lease, the freehold parts of the inn, and no. 34 Oxford Street. The tenant 11/1512. 1804-27, Edward Wells, and his partner Edward Gardner, were noted for the best homebrewed beer between London and Birmingham. (fn. 7) By then no. 32 seems to have been separately occupied and by the mid 19th century was a grocer's shop; the ballroom on its first floor may have formed part of the inn in the earlier 19th century. for a few years c. 1840 the innkeeper was William Margetts, also landlord of the Bear, but the coaching trade declined so sharply that by 1844 the Marlborough Arms was closed as an inn until the late 1850s. (fn. 8) Thereafter no. 30, which remained part of the inn until 1840 or later, (fn. 9) was let separately until sold c. 1886 with nos. 32-4. William Haynes, innkeeper from the late 1850s and also lessee of Balliol's Manor Farm in Old Woodstock, carried on a successful brewing business until 1907. The duke gave up the Balliol lease c. 1891, and the college sold the derelict building during the First World War. The hotel was restored in the 1930s and trade received sharply during the Second World War. (fn. 10)

The hotel surrounds a long courtyard, approached through a carriage entrance. (fn. 11) Most of the courtyard ranges are of the 18th century, some refenestrated in the 1930s when the the built. (fn. 12) The main street frontage formed a balanced early 18th-century design, incorporating no. 30 Oxford Street. The central four-bay block, which retains early 18th-century keystoned windows and original sashes, was surmounted until the early 20th century by a triangular pediment with ball finials; the flanking two-bayed wings (nos. 26 and 30) retain early 18th-century windows and both had attic dormers, which survive in no. 26. The south wing incorporates an ornate classical carriage entrance and no. 30 retains the former main staircase of the inn, a fine early 18th-century open-well design, lit by an oval lantern. The hotel bar, formerly the 'great dining room', contains a baroque stone fireplace of the early 18th century, and another stone fireplace of similar date survives in the ground floor of no. 30; both there and in the main block there is early and mid 18th-century panelling. Gabriel Brown, innkeepr 1723-39, was related by marriage to the Oxford masons, the Townesends; (fn. 13) in 1723 William Townesend (d. 1739) and his partner Bartholomew Peisley, the working at Blenheim, were trustees for his lease of the inn, (fn. 14) and may have been concerned in the design or building of the main ranges.

The rebuilding of no. 32 in the later 18th century marked the northward extension of the inn. A large room on the first floor retains what may have been a dancing floor, over 3 ft. deep and once packed with chaff; there are ornate medallioned cornices, late 18th-century fire-places, and a large Venetian bay window. The ground floor, which retains 18th-century features, is lit by a fine bow-fronted late 19th-century shop window, partially concealing the lunette of an earlier entrance. No. 34 Oxford Street was largely rebuilt in the early 19th-century.

5. Nos. 44-6 Oxford Street

When sold to Richard Norman in 1675 the site was the Globe, (fn. 15) and was probably the inn or alehouse occupied by Thomas Godfrey in the early 17th century. (fn. 16) For most of the 18th century the Norman family of fellmongers and glovers lived on part of the site. It was sold in 1792 to John Gulliver, whose relict Catherine in 1821 sold it, including two houses, to the duke of Marlborough's trustees; the wish of the 4th duke (d. 1817) to give it to the grammar school was not fulfilled, although the master was housed there briefly from 1817. (fn. 17) The Blenheim estate sold no. 46 in 1913 and no. 44 to the Woodstock Social Club in 1973. (fn. 18) The two houses, described as new in 1779, appear to have been refronted later. (fn. 19)

6. No. 50 Oxford Street

In 1279 Reynold at the green owed 7d. quitrent for the fourth burgage in a sequence of 14 originally 6d. plots that occupied one side of a Woodstock street. (fn. 20) In the early 17th century Bartholomew Edging owed 7d. for a house on the east side of Oxford Street (fn. 21) which descended through the Dennet, Bennett, and Smith families to the Morgans, chimneyweeps, who lived at no. 50 in the early 20th century. (fn. 22) If no. 50 was the fourth burgage the sequence of 6d. rents in 1279 related to the east side of Oxford Street from near no. 60 to no. 14 (Hope House). (fn. 23)

No. 50 is of the early 17th century, refronted in the mid 18th; it has an original central passage, heavy hollow-chamfered beams in the front ground floor room, a 17th-century winder staircase, and two fine 17th-century studded doors. The rear elevation and early 17th-century rear wing incorporate elaborately carved wooden lintels.

7. Nos. 58-66 Oxford Street

In 1279 part of the site was probably the corner plot of Joan the parker. (fn. 24) In 1608-9, when sold to John Norman (d. 1653), butcher, the property comprised a house called the malthouse and a close of 1½ a., presumably the close on the north still held with the property in the 20th century. (fn. 25) In the 18th century the Norman family let it to Thomas Morris and later his son Spencer, bakers, and there was a bakehouse there in 1790. (fn. 26) From the mid 19th century until the 1950s the site was a glove factory. (fn. 27) Nos. 62-4, part of the range called Webley Terrace after a 19th-century glove master, are of the 17th century of earlier and retain fine carved wood lintels. The site, which carried no separate quitrent and may have belonged to the original corner tenement or close, was perhaps built on in the early Middle Ages to close off the market area of Oxford Street.

8. Nos. 70-4 Oxford Street

By 1598 the corporation was letting a house on Hollow Way but seems to have sold the freehold before the late 17th century, retaining a quitrent of 5s. By even the house was the Mermaid, flanked on the west by the town's almshouses and on the east by the common pound. (fn. 28) For much of the 18th century the property was held by the Miles family, collarmakers, and had probably ceased to be an alehouse; it was added to on the earth and by the early 19h century, comprised at least three houses and a shop, including a workshop used for the manufacture of ochre. (fn. 29) No. 72 contains 17th-century features, but most of the row was rebuilt or refronted in the early 19th century.

9. Nos. 76-82 Oxford Street

The site of the corporation's almhouses (nos. 76-8), the parish workhouse, an infant school, and the Olivet chapel and school. (fn. 30)

10. No. 122 Oxford Street (White Hart House)

In the early 17th century Alderman Thomas Browne was lessee of a malthouse, apprantely recently built on corporation land next to the river. (fn. 31) The corporation let it as the Malthouse until the early 19th century, (fn. 32) but it was an alehouse, the White Hart, by the mid 18th century when the undertenant, William Lord, was a victualler. (fn. 33) It remained a public house until the early 20th century, perhaps until c. 1905 when Halls of Oxford gave up the lease. Thomas Whitlock, butcher and beer retailer, tenant from the 1880s, (fn. 34) probably opened the butcher's shop there which was taken over c. 1918 by the Wicksons who retained it in 1987. The corporation sold the freehold in 1968. (fn. 35) The building, altered and extended in the early 19th century, retains 17th-century features, including chamfered stone-mullioned windows.

11. Nos. 87-96 Oxford Street

The site of the Marlborough almshouses of 1794, demolished in 1874. (fn. 36)

12. No. 2 Harrison's Lane (White House)

There may have been a house on the site from the Middle Ages (fn. 37) but the surviving house was probably built or rebuilt c. 1781 when William Hanks (d. 1801), innkeeper, obtained a corporation lease of land for a large garden; (fn. 38) from 1782 his tenants were gentry. Cornelius Fryer, owner c. 1809, (fn. 39) was succeeded in 1815 by the attorney and alderman J. V. Harrison, (fn. 40) who lived there until his death in 1854 and gave his name to the lane. Later owners included, from 1899, Alderman W. C. Brotherton (d. 1928). (fn. 41)

The main fronts are brick, rendered on the south presumably by the mid 19th century when the name White House was in use. (fn. 42) The narrow building had a symmetrical north front and side annexes lit by circular windows. It was enlarged and remodelled in the earlier 19th century, probably by J. V. Harrison. Canted bays were added on the north and an extension on the west was given similar bays; then or later a service corridor was built on the south, carried on brackets above the lane. The interior contains much late 18th-century work.

13. Site of Magdalen House

A church property called Magdalen House c. 1461 was Giles Coles's house near Hollow Way c. 1600, paying 5s. rent to the borough. Like most other chantry property it had evidently been granted away, perhaps on condition of rebuilding. (fn. 43) Later the site comprised two houses, one long held by the Druces, the other, retaining the name Magdalen House, held in the early 18th century by Richard Minn and later by the Wilkes family. (fn. 44) With a garden let by the corporation from the late 16th century the houses formed an island site north of nos. 77-81 Oxford Street. The site was altered c. 1780 when the turnpike commissioners levelled and widened Hollow Way. (fn. 45) In 1784-5 William Hanks, innkeeper, acquired the whole and rebuilt the western, former Druce, house, letting it to gentry tenants. The site was sold in 1802 to Thomas Waite and in 1835 to the turnpike trustees, who demolished both houses to widen the road. (fn. 46)

14. The Queen's Own

Between 1614 and 1616 Robert Winter built a house next to his existing house, on a narrow plot let to him by the corporation. (fn. 47) Under Winter, a saddler and licensed victualler, (fn. 48a) the house probably acquired the sign of the Three goats' Heads, symbol of leather workers, by which it was known in the late 17th century and 18th. (fn. 49a) The corporation seems to have sold it c. 1818. (fn. 50a) It may have ceased to be an inn during the 18th century, but by 1853 was the Queen's Own. (fn. 51a) Hook Norton Brewery Co. owned it from c. 1902.

15. Nos. 51-7 Oxford Street

The site of a house bequeathed in 1499 by Thomas Bailly to New college, Oxford. In the 17th century the house had a frontage of over 50 ft., but was divided iin the 19th century and used partly as an alehouse, probably until mid century when the adjacent Queen's Own was opened. In 1883 the college sold it to Edmund Webley, glover, who built the surviving terraced row. (fn. 52a)

16. Nos. 43-5 Oxford Street

The former fire station. (fn. 53a)

17. No. 41 Oxford Street

The site of the farmer Wesleyan chapel. (fn. 54a)

18. The King's Arms hotel

The site, chantry property acquired by the corporation in 1565, (fn. 55a) was later let on long leases as the Corner House, (fn. 56a) and by 1698 comprised two houses, one occupied by the Hoare family, licensed victuallers. (fn. 57a) On the death of William Hoare in 1778 his house was called the Compasses but by 1795 was the King's Arms. (fn. 58a) The site remained divided in the earlier 19th century, the inn occupying the Market Street range. (fn. 59a) The corporation allowed Alderman Joseph Haynes favourable terms when he enlarged the inn in the 1870s, (fn. 60a) and in 1943 sold it to the Northampton Brewery Co., lesses from c. 1898. The Market Street range is of the earlier 19th century; Haynes's addition of c. 1874 on Oxford Street included on the north the Royal Assembly Rooms, for long one of the town's principal meeting places. (fn. 61a)

19. No. 15 Market Street (Old Bank House)

From the mid 18th century the house belonged to Alderman Thomas Grantham (d. 1776), grocer and steel manufacturer, then to his son-in-law William Carter, alderman and grocer, (fn. 62a) to the partner of a later William Carter, Alderman William Morris (d. 1860). From 1841 Gillett, Tawney, 8 Co. operated a bank on the premises, becoming sole occupants from 1860 until they moved to Park Street in the early 1870s. (fn. 63a) The house was enlarged and remodelled in the mid 18th century. By the early 19th century rear access to the workhouses and workshops in the large yard behind the house was provided by a corporation lease of the later no. 43 Oxford Street. (fn. 64a)

20. No. 9 Market Street (Bartholomew House) and No. 7

The site, chantry property acquired by the corporation in 1565, was granted in 1569 to Alderman John Riley, chandler, at an annual rent of 10s., on condition that he rebuild three bays of housing. (fn. 65a) It belonged to prominent mercers, John Bradshaw (d. 1614) and Thomas Sparrow (d. 1678). In the 18th century it was owned by Richard Bartholomew, apothecary (d. 1798), and by his descendents the Heynes family throughout the 19th century. (fn. 66a) The original site included the later no. 7. (fn. 67a) It was later divided into at least two houses, possibly before the 1660s when Thomas Sparrow had a four-hearth house and rented out a two-hearth house. (fn. 68a) No. 7 was separated permanently c. 1768 and the site's quitrent divided. (fn. 69a)

Bartholomew House incorporates two ranges, built in squared and coursed limestone and rubble at right-angles to the street. That on the west may be John Riley's rebuilding of c. 1570 but with an added 17th-century two-storeyed gabled square bay with an Ipswich window on the first floor; that on the east, refronted on the late 18th century, has a short cross roof at the street end and is of the late 17th century, with a panelled room and wood mullioned windows at the rear. A newel stair, altered in the late 17th century, survives partly recessed into the east wall. The house plan, particularly, the thick west wall of the central passageway, suggests that the older, west range was perhaps once linked to buildings on the west. No. 7 was rebuilt c. 1800 with a three-storeyed canted bay, of which the ground floor was widened as a shop window in the 19th century.

21. Nos. 3-5 Market Street (Blandford Court)

The site was a chantry property acquired in 1553 by Simon Perrott, who in 1584 gave it to University College, Oxford, to endow a sermon; (fn. 70a) it then comprised a house and shoemaker's shop but its tenant from 1581, Henry Rudgate, was also a victualler, as were the 17th-century tenants Giles and Peter Franklin, barber surgeons. (fn. 71a) It was the Star by 1720, (fn. 72a) and remained so until changed to the Blandford Arms in the early 19th century. (fn. 73a) By the mid 19th century the inn was in disrepair and was closed for several years. It was acquired by Morlands Brewery in 1869, and was closed as a public house c. 1918 (fn. 74a) In the 1960s it was demolished and rebuilt as shops and apartments. (fn. 75a)

22. No. 1 Market Street

The house was occupied from the later 17th century until the 1790s by the Scirven family, (fn. 76a) plumbers and glaziers, and bought in 1834 by John Taylor, chemist. It was called the Old Pharmacy by the early 20th-century and remained a chemist's shop until 1968. (fn. 77a) The house, described as newly built in 1802, (fn. 78a) retains 17th-century timber framing in a first floor wall and a datestone of 1722 at the rear.

23. No. 6 Market Place

The house was probably owned in 1499 by Alderman John Wallis, mercer, and sold in 1515 to John Baron (or Barnes), mercer, many times mayor. (fn. 79a) In the early 17th century the house and its eastern neighbour (no. 1 Market Street), each owing 3d. quitrent, were owned and sublet by Henry Standard; (fn. 80a) Thomas Woodward, mercer (d. 1668), owned both and may have occupied no. 6. (fn. 81a) From the early 18th century the Brothertons, ironmongers, had their shop there (fn. 82a) and for several years from 1757 'Mrs. Brotherton's parlour' served as a temporary town hall. (fn. 83a) From 1805 the house and shop belonged to the ironmonger and clockmaker John Fardon (d. 1865), (fn. 84a) whose garden produced nationally renowned fruits. (fn. 85a) Later owners were Joseph Baker, watchmaker, and c. 1879 W. C. Brotherton, who had a shoe shop there. (fn. 86a) From 1900 it belonged to the Buckingham family, watchmakers and jewellers, until the mid 1950s when it became an antique shop. (fn. 87a)

The building is probably of the late 15th century and its front range, originally jettied, may have extended into the tenement on the west. The back range is timber-framed, with an elaborate jettied elevation to the yard, including a long window with moulded mullions to the ground floor, a moulded bressumer, and small first-floor windows, of which at least one was an oriel. Part of a stone newel stair survives in the east wall of the cellar. In the 18th century the house was faced in stone, and in the early 19th heightened.

24. No. 16 Market place (National Westminster Bank)

In 1499 the site was the Bull inn bought by William Harcourt of Cornbury with an attached shop, probably on the east; his son Richard was owner by 1515. (fn. 88a) Queen Elizabeth's retinue stayed there while she was imprisoned in Woodstock Manor in 1554. (fn. 89a) Until the mid 17th century the Bull remained one of the principal inns, used for corporate entertainment (fn. 90a) and owned by a succession of aldermen, notably Jerome Westall (fl. 1550), Thomas Bradshaw (d. 1613), and Joseph Harris (d. 1635). (fn. 91a) In the later 17th century Richard Keene, perhaps the bellfounder, was subletting the property, which may have ceased to be an inn since its rent no longer included 6d. for a sign; the tenant, Henry Jefferies, was assessed on six hearths in 1662. (fn. 92a) By the earlier 18th century the house was permanently divided, the larger portion forming the Angel inn, later the Old Angel. It was acquired by Hall's Oxford Brewery in 1810 and closed c. 1918 when it was rebuilt as the National Provincial (later National Westminster) Bank. The large inn yard was used for a market from the late 19th century. (fn. 93a) The smaller portion of the former Bull included at least three houses on the east, nos. 10-14 Market Street, (fn. 94a) and in the 16th century the inn may have extended even further east. (fn. 95a) The rebuilt bank retains some 18th-century work; nos. 12-14 are of the early 19th-century but no. 10 is a 19th-century refronting of a late 17th-century house.

25. No. 18 Market Place

The site, held in the 15th century by the Marshall family, (fn. 96a) was acquired in the later 16th by the Painters (fn. 97a) and by the mid 17th was the Three Cups inn. In 1662 the house had eight hearths. (fn. 98a) Under Alderman Thomas Painter (d. 1711) it was prominent enough to be used for corporate entertainment but by 1775 had ceased to be an inn. (fn. 99a) From the 1850s it was the shop of John Parker, upholsterer and cabinet maker, (fn. 1a) and from the 1880s until the c. 1960 an ironmonger's.

In 1650 Thomas Painter built a lean-to roof on posts on the frontage, 'to range with the Bull pentice'. (fn. 2a) It survived in the later 18th century, (fn. 3a) but the front range was rebuilt in the early 19th and a new shop front probably added by John Parker in the 1850s. (fn. 4a) There is a 17th-century rear wing and an attached building probably of the late 16th century, with a scrolled bracket supporting the ground-floor beam, winder stairs, a moulded stone arched fireplace, and two reset medieval lancets.

26. The Star

In 1456 the wardens of Woodstock chapel granted the recently acquired Black Hall to John Bytham for a quitrent of 2s. 4d. (fn. 5a) The quitrent was acquired by the corporation in 1565. (fn. 6a) In the later 16th century the house belonged to Alderman John Pyman and was acquired in 1594 by Robert Bignell, baker, whose family retained it until the late 17th century; by 1652 there was an extra rent for a bakehouse and in 1662 John Bignell was assessed on 4 hearths for his house and 1 hearth for his oven. (fn. 7a) The Bignells and their successors, the Taskers, who had probably take over the house by 1690, were licensed victuallers, (fn. 8a) and under Alderman John Tasker (d. 1741) the house was the White Horse. (fn. 9a) It was still so called in the 1780s but was the White Lion by the 1820s. (fn. 10a) It was acquired by Hall's Oxford Brewery in the 1840s and its name changed to the Star in the 1850s. (fn. 11a) The front range was rebuilt in the early 19th century; a 17th-century rear wing has been altered and heightened.

27. Nos. 2-8 Brown's Lane

A house on the site of no. 2 Brown's Lane was sold in 1840 by Nicholas Marshall (fn. 12a) and may be traced through its quitrent of 1½d. as that occupied in 1598 by Thomas Abbott and owned from the mid 17th century until the mid 18th by the Noble family. From c. 1760 Thomas Brown, smith and alderman (d. 1825), lived there, and the lane was later given his name. (fn. 13a) Brown's daughter Sophia (d. 1859) left the house to the corporation as a charity, but her wishes seem not to have been fulfilled. (fn. 14a) From c. 1879 until the mid 20th century the house belonged to the Paisleys, drapers; it is of the 18th century with later alterations and bears the date 1720, added in modern times.

Much of the east side of Brown's Lane worth of no. 2 was occupied by two chantry properties, later subdivided. The southernmost, given to the church before 1480, (fn. 15a) was granted by the corporation in 1569 to Edmund Aynger, shoemaker, at a reserved rent of 4s. 6d. on condition that he rebuild; the other may have been granted similarly and in 1598 bore the same reserved rent. (fn. 16a) The Aynger property, rebuilt in 1672, was probably nos. 4-6 Brown's Lane, a much altered 17th-century building retaining in no. 6 original beams and a central doorway with ovolo-moulded architrave. The house on the north belonged to the Nobles for most of the 17th century. It was acquired c. 1814 by Morrell's Oxford brewery and was the Horse and Jockey, later Horse and Groom, closed by the 1860s. (fn. 17a) The inn was probably no. 8 Brown's Lane.

28. Nos. 2-8 Park Street

In the mid 15th century the corner of Brown's Lane and Park Street belonged to a burgage later Fletcher's House. (fn. 18a) In 1598 Alderman William Metcalfe (d. 1608), woollendraper, was paying 6s. 8d. rent to the corporation for a garden on Market Hill in which, before 1601, he built a new house; his son William was granted a 150-year lease of the site in 1608 at the same rent. (fn. 19a) That and later corporation leases applied only to the surviving front range, (fn. 20a) evidently a large encroachment on the street; perhaps the Metcalfes already had a freehold house behind it. By 1652 John Shewsmith, who married Grace Metcalfe, window, (fn. 21a) owed an additional 2d. quitrent for a staircase 'in the street', possibly cellar steps. From 1662 the property was extended along Brown's Lane and by the later 19th century there were at least two cottages there. The Metcalfes sold the property in the 1690s, and before 1719 it passed to Henry Hodgkinson (d. 1725), mercer, whose family retained it until the bankruptcy of Gamaliel Hodgkinson Bobart in 1807. (fn. 22a) Edward Prescott, mercer and draper, bought the 'large and wellknown premises', (fn. 23a) which remained in his family into the 20th century. In 1865 the corporation. (fn. 24a) After local government reorganization in 1974 Woodstock council retained the site as 'historic property'. The shop has been the town's post office from c. 1885. (fn. 25a)

The building, in several occupations, seems to have comprised in the early 17th century a long range on the street with short wings projecting to the rear at each end and a central passage leading to a rear stair projection. The newel staircase with turned balusters is original but much altered, and the east wing retains finely carved timber lintels. A two-storeyed square bay was added to the front in the 17th century or early 18th, and in the 18th century the space between the west and stair projections was infilled and the ajacent room in the front range remodelled. In the early 19th century the front room on the west, which retains 17th-century panelling, was given a large canted bay window; it and the ajacent from room were parlours, and the rest of the front range formed a large shop, with a china shop to the rear. (fn. 26a) Outbuildings and a cottage along Brown's Lane probably date from the later 17th century. The rear west wing, used as a brewhouse in the early 19th century, was rebuilt in the 20th.

29. Fletcher's House

In 1279 Adam Bennet held a house, oven, 2 selds, and a forge at the corner of Park Street and Brown's Lane. (fn. 27a) In 1468-9 Thomas Fletcher was paying 6d. for a large vacant plot there which extended north to Harrison's Lane. (fn. 28a) In 1526 a house there belonged to another Thomas Fletcher, and in 1581 was quitclaimed by Joan, relict of John Fletcher, to her son Henry (d. by 1598). (fn. 29a) Before 1609 Alderman Thomas Browne acquired the house, which was occupied by Margaret Fletcher. (fn. 30a) In 1614 he bought two ajacent houses on the west, called Munday's and Maynard's from their 15th-century owners (fn. 31a) and together paying 4s. 10d. rent formerly owed to the chantry of St. Mary. (fn. 32a) Browne built a 'great house' called Fletcher's on the enlarged site; the earlier Fletcher's house seems to have been let until the mid 17th century (fn. 33a) but by the 1680s its 6d. quitrent was attached to a brewhouse presumably built on the site. (fn. 34a) Thomas Browne (d. 1621) was succeeded by his wife Joan and son Thomas, rector of Bladon (both d. 1625). (fn. 35a) John Vernon, heir perhaps by marriage, let the house; the occupant in 1654 was Dr. Francis Gregory, master of the grammar school, and it was probably the 12-hearth house which Gregory was renting in 1662. (fn. 36a) It was later owned by the lawyer and M.P. Sir Littleton Osbaldeston (d. 1692) and for much of the 18th century by the Grove family, which included the maltster James Grove (d. 1714) and his son Joshua (d. 1740). (fn. 37a) It was bought c. 1782 by the duke of Marlborough, who sold or gave it in 1787 to his auditor, Thomas Walker, town clerk (d. 1804). (fn. 38a)

He let the house as a girls' boarding school from 1787 (fn. 39a) and rebuilt and enlarged it from 1795; the first tenant was Henry Jeffery, Viscount Ashbrook, husband of Walker's granddaughter. (fn. 40a) Richard Taylor, esquire, tenant from 1810 and later owner until c. 1842, was succeeded by Alderman William Margetts (d. 1869) and Alderman R. B. B. Hawkins (d. 1894). The name Fletcher's House seems to have been revived in the early 20th century. In 1925 tge house was bought from the Hawkins family by Capt. E. C. W. Thring and in 1949 compulsorily purchased by the council for use as the County Fire Brigade headquarters; in 1965 it became the County Museum. (fn. 41a)

The remains of the new house of c. 1614 occupy the centre and west end of the building and include part of an original staircase with heavy turned balusters and newel posts with large ball finials. The house was refronted and the east block built under a contract of 1795. (fn. 42a) James Grove's 'Marlborough gardens' bequeathed in 1714 may have been the large highwalled grounds of Fletcher's House, (fn. 43a) of which most surviving features are c. 1800 and later.

30. Nos. 14-16 Park Street (Barclays Bank)

The site, a chantry property presumably acquired by the corporation in 1565, was later granted on a long lease. (fn. 44a) In 1598 the lessees were the Flemings and in 1611 Edmund Hiorne, town clerk, to whom the corporation in 1565, was later freehold in 1618, reserving the annual rent. (fn. 45a) The house was large and Hiorne's tenants included Dr. Francis Gregory, master of the grammar school; it was probably the ninehearth house which Gregory occupied in 1662. (fn. 46a) On Hiorne's death in 1669 the house was to be sold, and was later owned by Sir Littleton Osbaldeston (d. 1692), who let it to the town clerk George Ryves (d. 1718). (fn. 47a) The Ryves family of town clerks acquired the freehold, which passed from Edward (d. 1767) to his grandson Benjamin Holloway (d. 1796), (fn. 48b) and was retained by the Holloways until the 1860s. Their tenants included Lord Charles Spencer (c. 1816). Benjamin Holloway (d. 1856) was resident from c. 1830. Alderman R. B. B. Hawkins bought the house c. 1867 but exchanged it in 1870 for Fletcher's House, owned by William Margetts, junior. (fn. 49b) Margetts was clerk, later manager, of Gillett's bank, which was moved there soon afterwards from no. 15 Market Street; it became Barclay's in 1919. (fn. 50b)

The bank (no. 16) was probably built by Edward Ryves in the 1740s; (fn. 51b) it contains original panelling and fireplaces. A rear wing was added or rebuilt in the early 19th century. The attached bank house (no. 14) was rebuilt or refronted in the mid 19th century.

31. Nos. 18-20 Park Street

The site held a former chantry house granted on long lease by the corporation in the later 16th century. The lease was acquired before 1613 by Edmund Hiorne, town clerk, and the corporation granted him the freehold in 1618, reserving the annual rent of 5s. 4d. (fn. 52b) Hammond's house, named from an early 17th-century tenant, was Hiorne's at his death in 1669; soon afterwards the corporation's right to the rent was challenged successfully. (fn. 53b) The site was owned from the late 18th century until the mid 19th by Thomas Higgins, currier, and his family. (fn. 54b) Thomas c. 1800 built or rebuilt the large three-storeyed brick house with rusticated stone quoins; it was divided into two in the 1860s. (fn. 55b)

32. Chaucer's House

In 1279 the site may have been that next to the park gate for which Robert Marshall paid 4d. rent. (fn. 56b) Later it seems to have become attached to the royal manor, from which it was held by Maud, relict of Sir Thomas Chaucer, at her death in 1437. (fn. 57b) Sir Thomas (d. 1434), royal servant and Speaker of the Commons, was farmer of Woodstock manor and park from 1411. (fn. 58b) An idea persisted that the house belonged to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1380), Thomas's alleged father, (fn. 59b) but the Chaucers had no known connexion with Woodstock until the early 15th century when the house was called Hanwell's, from a tenant John Hanwell (fl. 1395), tax collector in Oxfordshire and probably a royal servant. (fn. 60b) In 1450 it was confirmed to Alice de la Pole (d. 1475), dowager duchess of Suffolk, daughter and heir of Thomas and Maud Chaucer. (fn. 61b) In 1547, as a former possession of Charles, duke of Suffolk (d. 1545), the house and an attached 1 ½ a. were let by the Crown for 21 years to the occupier Richard Andrews. (fn. 62b) Andrews (d. 1554), an agent for the sale of monastic lands, was mayor in 1551. His house was large and contained a chapel chamber. (fn. 63b) By the later 16th century it was called Chaucer's House. (fn. 64b)

The Crown granted long leases to a succession of royal servants, (fn. 65b) who sublet the house. By 1568-9 and until the 1580s St. John's College, Oxford, reserved it as a retreat in time of plague; it was so used in 1571-2 but was usually sublet. (fn. 66b) By 1598 John Phillips, perhaps the alderman who died in 1608, was occupying Chaucer's House. (fn. 67b) A Crown lease of 1609 seems to have passed to Thomas Leigh of Shipton-on-Cher-well, who in 1610 sold the house (fn. 68b) to Jerome Kyte (d. 1631), jurist of St. John's College, borough magistrate, and brewer. (fn. 69b) The house descended to Kyte's daughter Elizabeth and her husband Edward Say, esquire (d. 1647), whose son William sold it in 1673 to Stephen Pomfret, master of Woodstock grammar school 1664-76. (fn. 70b) In 1675 Pomfret sold to Nicholas Baynton (d. 1700), Woodstock's M.P. in 1681. Baynton sold it in 1695, when the tenant was another grammar school master, Meredith Vaughan. (fn. 71b) Robert Hatley, haberdasher of hats, was owner 1696-1716, and his tenant in the early 18th century was Henry Beeston, the town's recorder. (fn. 72b) In 1734 the owner and occupant Henry Taylor (d. 1736), gentleman and maltster, settled the reversion on the marriage of his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Sutton, to the Oxford mason John Townesend (d. 1746). (fn. 73b) In 1747 Elizabeth Townesend, widow, let it to Thomas Prior, maltster, and the Priors seem to have acquired the freehold. (fn. 74b) The family, which included several wealthy maltsters and farmers, retained the house until the 1888; the artist Sir William Nicholson (d. 1949), grandson of Joseph Prior (d. 1886), was lessee 1899-1906. (fn. 75b)

The house, depicted in 1677 as a large building in a walled courtyard, (fn. 76b) was largely rebuilt in the 18th century and later. In 1722 it was described as an old house but by 1787 there were only the 'poor remains' of the house 'where Chaucer dwelt and sung'. (fn. 77b) The survivals of the ancient house were incorporated in a malthouse, a range projecting on the north-west of the main house, (fn. 78b) partly preserved in the surviving barn, which has ancient timbers set in the wall and a re-used 14th-century cusped light. The front range of the house, adjoining the park gate, was rebuilt in the earlier 18th century with a principal room on each side of a central entrance and chimneystack; the west room retains original panelling and a fireplace. A central projection at the rear contains an altered 17th-century staircase with flat balusters. In the mid 19th century the east wing was rebuilt and large additions made at the rear; the original entrance doorway was moved to the east wing and oval windows added to the front. (fn. 79b)

When the park gate was replaced by the Triumphal Arch and associated courtyard in 1723 a house projecting into the park from the west end of Chaucer's House was removed. (fn. 80b) In the 17th century the grounds of Chaucer's House extended northwards to the foot of the hill near the causeway, where there was a 'handsome' entrance gate. A house there, probably on the site of no. 85 Oxford Street which retains 17th-century windows, was sold in 1672 to Thomas Norris, and in 1687 Nicholas Baynton sold the lower part of the grounds to Norris; the Priors bought the house, an attached malthouse, and the lower close in 1754 and sold them to the duke of Marlborough in 1783. (fn. 81b)

33. The Bishop's House

Formerly the rectory house. (fn. 82b)

34. Woodstock House

In 1639 Thomas White, gentleman, of Woodstock Park sold a new house on Back Green in a close of c. 2 a. to the tenant Benjamin Merrick; (fn. 83b) it may have been Merrick's 'lodge' mentioned in 1635. (fn. 84b) The quitrent of only 1d. suggests that the close had been in severalty since the Middle Ages. Merrick (d. 1675), (fn. 85b) greatly extended the grounds. His house was assessed on seven hearths in 1662. (fn. 86b) In 1695 his heir, Dudley Rogers, sold the estate as Dogkennel House to Thomas Napier of Hensington, who may have let it as a hunting box: Philip, duke of Wharton, was tenant in the 1720s. (fn. 87b) In 1727 John Morse (d. 1737), a London goldsmith, (fn. 88b) bought the house and in 1737 gave it to a friend, Walter Pryse (d. 1745). It remained in the Pryse family, later of Gogerddan (Cardig.) and Buscot Park (Berks.), until 1850 and was sold to the Blenheim trustees in 1855. The Pryses let the house from the 1820s, one tenant being Henry Peyton, Woodstock's M.P. (fn. 89b) The duke's tenant from the 1860s until the 1880s was Col. H. J. Thomas, an alderman. Since 1950 the house has been a private home for the elderly. (fn. 90b)

The grounds, again enlarged in the mid 18th century, reached their surviving extent in the early 19th when a large house between Woodstock House and the rectory house was incorporated. In the 17th century Edmund Hiorne, town clerk (d. 1669), sold a house and malthouse there to Benjamin Merrick, who seems to have rebuilt it. It passed to Merrick's godson Charles Jenkins who sold it in 1728 to Thomas Peynton. (fn. 91b) In the 18th century the house was occupied briefly by the banker Sir Theodore Janssen (fn. 92b) and later owned by Grace Cottrell of Rousham and her sister Elizabeth Cartwright (d. 1803). Pryse Pryse bought it in 1803 and soon afterwards it was demolished. (fn. 93b)

Woodstock House was rebuilt in the earlier or mid 18th century and retains a fine Doric portico and panelling, dados, and doorcases of that period. It was altered and extended northwards when the Cartwright house was demolished in the early 19th century. The range on Rectory Lane was the site of houses acquired from the mid 18th century and rebuilt as stables and outbuildings in the early 19th. (fn. 94b)

35. Site of the Cockpit

A site on Back Green, used as a cockpit in the earlier 17th century, was later taken into the grounds of Woodstock House. (fn. 95b) In 1715 the corporation granted land for a cockpit to William Diston, provided that councillors had free entry to cockfights. (fn. 96b) Diston, the duchess of Marlborough's political manager in Woodstock, complained of the high cost of building the cockpit but recognized its political value. (fn. 97b) His lease was taken over in 1762 by Edward Ryves, town clerk, whose heir Benjamin Holloway sold it to John Churchill in 1777. Cockfighting had ceased by 1790 when the building was a stable with an attached cottage. (fn. 98b) In 1840 the site was bought for a National school but not so used and in 1855 the lease was sold to J. N. Godden, (fn. 99b) who turned the buildings into a glove factory. In 1943 Dent 8 Allcroft bought the factory but ceased gloving soon after 1945. (fn. 1b) Diston's cockpit, a large octagonal building, was demolished between 1840 and 1876. (fn. 2b) Council apartments were built there in the 1960s.

36. No. 23 Rectory Lane

Formerly the pest house. (fn. 3b)

37. The King's Head

The building, dated 1735, has the initials of Walter Paine, carpenter (d. 1776), who rebuilt his house as two, retaining no. 9 Park Lane and selling the other in 1755. No. 11 was acquired in 1786 by the duke of Marlborough and by 1801 was the King's Head, a sign used until 1786 by an inn in Park Street. Hall's Brewery was lessee from 1899. (fn. 4b)

38. Nos. 5-9 Park Street

In the early 17th century Alderman Thomas Metcalfe (d. 1630), woollendraper, was paying 10d. quitrent for the site of the later nos. 5-9. (fn. 5b) From the 1730s, when owned by the Keywoods, victuallers, part of the site was the King's Arms inn. (fn. 6b) In the 1750s Henry Metcalfe, whitesmith, owned the site and sublet the inn, which was closed in 1763. (fn. 7b) The site was bought in two portions c. 1775 by William Harrison, steelworker, and Henry North, town clerk. (fn. 8b)

North (d. 1831) and his son Henry (d. 1881), also town clerk, owned no. 9 Park Street, which passed to their heirs, the Cheatles. In the mid 20th century the house was named the Old Town House; from 1978 until 1988 it housed the Marc Fitch library. (fn. 9b) The gabled eastern range is 17th-century with later additions, and probably formed one wing of a house which extended westwards. The large three-storeyed main range was given a symmetrical front with distinctive tympanum arches over sash windows by Henry North c. 1800; much of the interior was remodelled at the same time.

William Harrison's portion was in two occupations by 1785. (fn. 10b) No. 7 was acquired c. 1815 by Sophia Brown (d. 1859) and rebuilt between 1826 and 1828. (fn. 11b) It was later acquired and sublet by Henry North, whose tenant in the 1860s and 1870s was the glove manufacturer J. N. Godden. (fn. 12b) The Timms family, owners in the earlier 20th century, renamed it Eversley. Details from the 17th-century house on the site (fn. 13b) survive in the interior. The porch was added in the 1850s, when an encroachment rent began to be paid. No. 5 Park Street was a shop by the later 18th century; it was sold in 1877 to the occupier J. W. Garrett and was later called Garrett House. (fn. 14b) It is of the 18th century or earlier, refronted in the mid 19th. A plaque records its occupation by Edmund Hiorne (d. 1669), who lived in a house on the east. (fn. 15b)

39. War Memorial garden

In 1279 there was a house on the north side of the church between a stile and passage to the north door and a lane which probably passed the west end of the church. (fn. 16b) In 1479 Thomas Croft (d. 1488) bought a house there which became a chaplain's house and almshouse attached to his chantry of St. Margaret. (fn. 17b) It was given to the corporation as an almshouse in 1551 but by the 1590s was let to the town clerk. Thomas Rawlins, clerk 1598-1607, rebuilt it with a town office at the rear. (fn. 18b) His successor Edmund Hiorne was granted the freehold in 1618, the corporation reserving the customary rent of 10s. (fn. 19b) The house had four hearths in 1662. (fn. 20b) After Hiorne's death in 1669 it passed to his granddaughter's husband, Richard Major, victualler and later mayor, who turned it into an inn, the King's Head; the corporation gave up the town office in 1679. (fn. 21b) In 1753 the inn was sold by Major's great-grandson Thomas to Ezra Wells, landlord from the 1730s, (fn. 22b) whose relict Sarah sold to Thomas Higgins in 1775. (fn. 23b) In 1786 the building was sold and demolished to make way for the church's new tower and entrance courtyard. (fn. 24b)

40. Nos. 1-3 Park Street

In 1279 there was a house east of the stile and passage to the church's north door. (fn. 25b) In the later Middle Ages it may have been the site of a chaplain's house attached to St. Mary's chantry: in 1611 the Walker family's house at the church stile, which owed a 'chantry quitrent' of 1d., was called the chantry house. (fn. 26b) From the early 17th century until 1756 it belonged to the Noble family, and may have been the building known as King John's cottages demolished in 1755. (fn. 27b) The Bennetts had two houses on the site in 1785. (fn. 28b) No. 3 Park Street had been acquired by Benjamin Bennett in 1772 and the Bennetts were postmasters there until 1840, when the house was sold to George Coles the younger, surgeon. It was bought by the duke of Marlborough in 1889 and let in the late 19th century as the Conservative club. (fn. 29b) No. 1 Park Street was said in 1840 to have been built on the site of a shop and garden of Sanders Bennett, probably he who died in 1783. (fn. 30b) It was bought in 1840 by the duke, who seems to have let it with the Bear inn. (fn. 31b)

41. The Bear hotel

Until the 18th century the Bear occupied the site of the present main entrance range and probably the gabled range on the west; the tall block incorporating the carriage entrance was the site of another inn, the King's Arms. Houses on the east and west, now part of the hotel, were private houses or shops until the later 20th century.

In 1279 Robert Marshall held a large plot bounded on the west by the church, (fn. 32b) and in the 16th century the site was one of several owned by Jerome Westall, mercer and innkeeper; (fn. 33b) assertions, however, that the Bear was an inn from the early Middle Ages (fn. 34b) remain unsubstantiated. By the 17th century the name was in use and from 1593 the site was an inn or wine tavern owned by William Rayer (d. 1619) and his son Thomas (d. 1662), aldermen and vintners. (fn. 35b) It had nine hearths in the 1660s. (fn. 36b) Edward Fennymore (d. 1695) and his family, owners 1687-1740, were wealthy maltsters. (fn. 37b) Charles Simmons Cross, tenant of the Bully family from 1743, bought the inn in 1759-60. (fn. 38b)

By the later 17th century the King's Arms on the east, owned by John Franklin (d. 1685), was a prominent inn with at least 15 bedrooms. (fn. 39b) The tenant from the 1690s until c. 1720 was Thomas 'Jockey' Green and the inn was used by the organizers of Woodstock races. (fn. 40b) In 1728 it was being rebuilt (fn. 41b) but soon afterwards seems to have closed. As the Old King's Arms its quitrent was in arrears from 1728 until 1752; Mr. Barnard succeeded Thomas Franklin as owner c. 1736 but the corporation seems to have acquired an interest in the site, paying its land tax from 1737 or earlier, carrying off timbers from a possibly demolished building there in 1742, and selling them until 1751. (fn. 42b) In 1757-8 Charles Cross of the Bear succeeded Barnard as owner and by 1762 the former King's Arms quitrent was paid for the 'new house', presumably the tall carriage entrance block. (fn. 43b)

Under Cross (d. 1779) the Bear became a prominent coaching inn. (fn. 44b) His son Charles, who operated a Stamp Office there, was made bankrupt in 1789 for debts of over £15,000 to the Crown, which sold the inn in 1790-1 to the duke of Marlborough. (fn. 45b) Noted innkeepers included William Hanks from 1798, William Taplin in the 1820s, and Alderman William Margetts in the 1830s and 1840s. (fn. 46b) From 1625 until the early 18th century the owners of the Bear held Butt close, later part of Woodstock House grounds, as a source of hay and pasture; later the duke let the inn with land in Hensington which retained the name Bear Close when built on in the 1930s. (fn. 47b)

The earliest part of the hotel is the gabled 17th-century range on the west, which retains an early fireplace on the ground floor but was refenestrated in the 18th century and later. The entrance range was rebuilt in the earlier 18th century and altered presumably when the former King's Arms site was incorporated: the doorway, which has a moulded wooden architrave with carved bears in the spandrels and fine wrought iron brackets supporting a flat hood, blocked a former carriage entrance. The tall block on the east was designed as an inn with a central carriage entrance in a symmetrical fivebayed front; it retains the original sash windows with thick glazing bars, and seems stylistically earlier than the c. 1760 suggested by documentary evidence. In 1789 the inn contained 25 bedrooms and stabling in the long rear courtyard for 60 horses. By the 1820s there were beds for c. 50 guests and the stables, for 80 horses, were the largest in the town; it was the busiest of the coaching inns and the starting point of the Blenheim coach. (fn. 48c) In the 20th century the Bear was the town's foremost hotel.

42. Nos. 9-11 Market Place

In the later 15th century a house on the site, called Newbold, became the Crown inn. (fn. 49c) In the 17th century, in the ownership of the aldermen John Glover (d. 1643) and his son Thomas (d. 1684), the Crown was a leading inn, used regularly for corporate festivities. (fn. 50c) It had eight hearths in the 1660s. (fn. 51c) In 1718 Michael Glover sold it to Charles and Merrick Jenkins, whose heirs, the Slaters, sold it in 1765 to the duke of Marlborough. (fn. 52c) By 1741 the inn was closed (fn. 53c) and after 1765 was let as two houses. No. 9 was an ironmonger's shop, held by the Brothertons from before 1770 until the 1830s and the Deans until c. 1870; William Howells, draper, tenant of no. 11 in the 1840s, was also postmaster. (fn. 54c) In 1884-5 both houses were bought by Richard Lay, glove manufacturer, tenant of no. 11, and gloving continued at no. 11 until the 1980s. (fn. 55c)

The building, heavily altered in the 19th century, retains an early 18th-century moulded eaves cornice and signs of earlier fenestration: in the 1760s the front was a six-window range with carriage entrance. (fn. 56c) It was rebuilt and the carriage entrance blocked perhaps c. 1800 when a bay window was added; the large splayed bay of no. 11 probably dates from the 1860s. (fn. 57c)

43. No. 7 Market Place

The site was held by a Bicester merchant William Dister (d. 1520), (fn. 58c) and was given by John Wiggins in 1529 to feoffees for the poor of Bicester. The feoffees sold it c. 1782. (fn. 59c) In the early 17th century it belonged to a mercer and in 1668 Alderman Alexander Johnson, mercer, rebuilt the house, which bears the date and his initials. (fn. 60c) From the 1850s until the 1920s it was an ironmonger's shop owned by the Eldridges. The doublegabled rubble front retains its original wood mullioned attic windows but was given sash windows, bays, and an arched entrance canopy c. 1800. (fn. 61c)

44. No. 5 Market Place

From the early 18th century the Hindes family, apothecaries, owned the site until Zachary (d. 1777) left it to his partner, George Coles. (fn. 62c) The Coles family sold it in 1851 to William Eccles, who was succeeded as printer, stationer, and postmaster there by his son William (d. 1885). (fn. 63c) The house, later divided into two, was refronted in the mid 18th century and much altered in the early 19th; it may retain an earlier, jettied front. (fn. 64c)

45. Nos. 6-8 High Street

The site was bought in 1682 by Robert and Simon Hatley, haberdashers of hats. (fn. 65c) In 1708 Simon, alderman and maltster, was building the house which bears on the rainwater head his initials and those of his wife Mary and the date 1710. (fn. 66c) The house was alleged to have been built with stone taken from the Blenheim works, (fn. 67c) and may have been designed by one of the Blenheim masons. In 1812, after the bankruptcy of Thomas Hatley, hatter, the building, by then divided, was acquired by the duke of Marlborough. (fn. 68c) It was let as two houses until sold in 1913. (fn. 69c) The imposing threestoreyed building, of limestone ashlar, retains on the first floor its original sash windows in segmental arched architraves with large keystones; the interior retains fine early 18th-century stairs and a stone bolection-moulded fireplace. The second floor was refenestrated in the 19th century; a bow window was added to no. 8 in the early 19th century and a canted bay to no. 6 in the late 19th.

46. Nos. 12-14 High Street

In 1583 John Phillips of Oxford, draper, bequeathed the site to support a school in Kirtlington. In 1766 the trustees leased the ruinous building to the duke of Marlborough, who rebuilt it as two houses and added two cottages, the surviving nos. 8-10 Park Lane. (fn. 70c) The duke gave up the lease c. 1846. (fn. 71c) The houses, fronted with limestone ashlar, retain original doors and sashes.

47. No. 20 High Street (The Ancient House)

The house was occupied in the 17th century and probably earlier by the Williams family, which provided several mayors, including Thomas (d. 1636), baker and innholder, whose initials and those of his wife Elizabeth are carved on the gable finials; John Williams was assessed on eight hearths there in 1662. (fn. 72c) The family retained the house until the 1740s. It was bought in 1796 by the occupant Charles Heynes, surgeon (d. 1836); William Heynes was a grocer there in the 1850s and 1860s, and it was later let as a grocer's shop until sold c. 1898 by the Heynes family to W. B. Turrill, lessee from 1892. (fn. 73c) Soon afterwards the Turrills built the large shop (no. 22) on the attached garden east of the house and continued as grocers there until the 1960s; no. 20 was let as shops.

The house bears the date 1627 which, although added later, is the probable date of the building. The house is of limestone rubble with a double gabled front and an L shaped plan; the gables have finely carved bargeboards and finials and there are wood-mullioned windows with carved lintels. In the rear wing there are other early 17th-century lintels and doors. In the early 18th century the central doorway was remodelled and the front refenestrated on the ground and first floor. The interior contains early 17th-century timbers and early 18th-century panelling and a fireplace.

48. Nos. 24-36 High Street

In the early 16th century Sir Edmund Hampden, steward of Woodstock manor, had a very large holding east of Park Lane, perhaps accumulated during the town's decline in the later Middle Ages. His house, called New Place, and a recently acquired tenement on the east were bought in 1513 by Robert Whitehill, comptroller of the park, (fn. 74c) and were owned later by George Whitton (d. 1606), comptroller and alderman. In 1567 Whitton extended his 'great house' westwards on a plot granted by the corporation, and a separate house further west was used in the early 17th century as a kitchen for the main house. By then the holding was in several occupations, (fn. 75c) and later Whittons seem not to have lived there. A plot at the corner of Park Lane sold off by John Whitton in 1608 (fn. 76c) was later reunited, for when John Cary of Wilcote bought the 'great house' in 1675 it stretched eastwards from Park Lane to include the site of the later no. 36 High Street. (fn. 77c)

In 1675 Cary sold the site of no. 36 to John Shewsmith, who built a new house. (fn. 78c) It was owned from the early 18th century to the 20th by the Wilkes family and was usually let as a shop; its tenants from the later 19th century were the Mitchells, builders. Shewsmith's house was much altered in the early 19th century, and later a carriage entrance was inserted at the east end of the ground floor.

John Cary (d. 1702), royal servant, agent for several local aristocrats with interests in Woodstock and the park, and prominent in the town's political life, (fn. 79c) occupied and probably much rebuilt the rest of the 'great house', laying out a large garden at the rear. (fn. 80c) When William III visited Woodstock in 1695 he stayed at Cary's house. (fn. 81c) Later Carys let the house and by the 1730s Edmund Sheafe had turned part of it into an inn, the New Angel. (fn. 82c) In 1749-50 Richard Cary, John's grandson, sold it to Thomas Wyatt, who had agreed on a division with Richard Weller, builder. Weller's share, which lay east of the hall of the house, was partly remodelled as two houses (nos. 30-32), and the rest (no. 34) sold immediately. Nos. 30-32 were sold in 1751 to Peter Pearson and acquired in 1785 by the duke of Marlborough, whose descendants retained no. 32 until 1913 and no. 30 until 1964. (fn. 83c)

Wyatt turned the west end of his share into a steelworker's shop and warehouse, occupied by his son Thomas, and in 1764 settled those premises and part of the main house on Richard Cross, who married his daughter Mary (d. 1770). By 1777, when Cross settled the property on his second marriage, a new house (no. 24) had replaced the steelworker's shop and part of the main house. Cross and his sons were glove manufacturers and established behind no. 26 a long range of workshops and warehouses. On Benjamin Billing Cross's bankruptcy in 1840 nos. 24 and 26 were sold, (fn. 84c) and gloving seems to have ceased on the site. No. 24, later named the Corner House, was occupied from the 1920s by medical practitioners until turned into a chemist's shop in the 1960s. The Wyatts seem to have retained no. 28 until c. 1775. Charles Turner, draper and glover (d. 1800), was owner from c. 1779 and from c. 1816 until the 1860s the Harris family owned and let the house. Adolphus Ballard (d. 1915), town clerk and historian, (fn. 85c) lived there from c. 1890 and named it Cromwell House.

The rubble coursing of the fronts of nos. 28 and 26 and evidence of linked cellars show that they were of one build; the stone mullioned and transomed windows and heavily dentilled cornice of no. 28 probably date from a remodelling by John Cary of the central range of his house c. 1675. Of the houses on the west nos. 30-4 retain hollow- and ogee-moulded beams of the late 16th century or early 17th, suggesting that Whitton's great house occupied most of the long frontage. The hall section mentioned in the mid 18th century evidently included both nos. 28 and 26, its west end presumably marked by a great fireplace with a chamfered, arched wood bressumer in the west wall of no. 26. In no. 28 the east end of the rear range housed a substantial staircase, perhaps similar to the surviving reset and altered or copied 17th-century staircase. In the late 18th century an attic floor and a two-storeyed bow window were added. Some of the 18th-century panelling and other fittings were introduced by the owner, a builder, in the later 20th century; the late 18th-century porch hood was taken from the Marlborough Arms. (fn. 86c) No. 26 was given bow windows in the late 18th century and a second storey and rear wing in the early 19th. No. 24, a large three-storeyed double-depth house of coursed limestone with ashlar dressings, is presumably Richard Cross's house of c. 1770. At the rear an overlap of plan with that of no. 26 recalls that the houses were in single ownership at the time of rebuilding. Interior alterations and some refenestration were carried out in the 19th century, and the ground floor was entirely remodelled as a shop in the 1960s.

49. Nos. 38-50 High Street

In 1513 Hugh Weller held the site of no. 38 and in the early 17th century another Hugh Weller owned a 'range of housing next to Oxford Town's End' (fn. 87c) which evidently covered the whole site of nos. 38-50. Three houses at the east end were sold by John Weller in the later 17th century, (fn. 88c) and nos. 38-44 were sold after the death of Richard Weller in 1804 to the Wilkeses, coachbuilders, who retained them until the early 20th century. The Wellers were slatters and builders, and in 1740 Richard Weller (d. 1758) was rebuilding nos. 38-40 and 42-4. (fn. 89c) Both ranges were altered or rebuilt in the 19th century. Nos. 46-8 and no. 50 were owned and let by the Hatley family from 1686 and by the Gregorys of Hordley from 1718 until 1792. In the earlier 19th century the Paines, builders, occupied no. 50 and Thomas Wilkes, coachmaker, no. 48; (fn. 90c) both houses were refronted in that period but retain 17th-century features.

50. The Crown

The island site occupied by the Crown belonged to the Weller family in the mid 18th century and comprised a group of houses called the Little Town. (fn. 91c) The Wellers' property seems to have derived from two early 17th-century holdings, the house and garden of John Durbridge, smith, and 'Cardens in the street', an encroachment made by Edward Carden for a new shop, which also belonged to the Durbridges by 1652. John Durbridge's house owed a chantry quitrent, suggesting that the island site was medieval in origin. (fn. 92c) In the 1680s the Durbridges' successor Edward Wilsden had an alehouse, the Horseshoe, (fn. 93c) perhaps the forerunner of the Crown, which by 1840 occupied the south-east corner of the Little or Round Town, flanked on the south-west by cottages and on the north by a house, long used as a bakery. (fn. 94c) John Churchill, who acquired the Wellers' property in 1770, was probably responsible for naming the Crown, since in 1768 he had acquired and closed the nearby Crown, formerly the Rose and Crown. (fn. 95c) The Churchill family sold the island site in 1840. William Haynes (d. 1889) bought the Crown from the Hannis family in 1862 and greatly enlarged it, taking in the cottages on the south-west. (fn. 96c) Simmonds's Brewery, lessee from 1881, bought the freehold in 1923 and later took in the house on the north, which until 1890 had been the home of the builder George Osborne. (fn. 97c)

In 1840 much of the Crown was said to be newly built, (fn. 98c) and the range on High Street is presumably Haynes's extension of c. 1870. The former private house on the north is of c. 1700, remodelled in the mid 19th century.

51. Nos. 13-17 High Street

The site bore an annual rent charge of 6s. 8d. for a bread charity founded by William Cornwell, baker, in 1552. (fn. 99c) Cornwell acquired at least two adjacent tenements there in the early 16th century (fn. 1c) and may have built a single large house. The house, owned in the early 17th century by John Whitton (fn. 2c) passed from William Metcalfe to the Gregory family, cutlers, by the mid 17th century, and in the later 17th century comprised three houses in two ownerships. (fn. 3c) The apportionment of the rent charge between the two owners suggests that the principal house was the later no. 17 High Street, held from c. 1734 by the Metcalfe family, steelworkers, and in the later 19th century by William Leggatt, ironmonger, succeeded by William Jardine, grocer, who in 1909 was sharing the rent charge with Joyce Haynes, owner of nos. 13 and 15. (fn. 4c) All three houses were rebuilt in the 18th century and later.

52. No. 11 High Street

In 1728 John Kerwood, mason, bought the house from Anne Edgington, formerly Bruce, owner from 1705. It passed from the Kerwoods to the Watsons in 1743 and was sold in 1772 to Thomas Hanks, a London innkeeper. (fn. 5c) The Kerwoods and Watsons were licensed victuallers, and by the 1780s the house was the Dog and Duck. (fn. 6c) Hanks, who let the inn, rebuilt it before selling it in 1789 to Charles Saunders, brewer. (fn. 7c) From 1803 it belonged to Morrell's Oxford Brewery and was renamed the Jolly Farmers c. 1819 and the Prince of Wales c. 1853; it was closed as a public house by 1915. (fn. 8c) The building is of the late 18th century, with a bay window of the early 19th; the cellar, round arched and lined with limestone rubble, probably pre-dates the surviving house.

53. Nos. 2-4 Market Place, Nos. 1-5 High Street

In 1279 a tenement against the stone cross (the site of the present town hall) paid the high quitrent of 1s. 6d., presumably as an encroachment on the market place. (fn. 9c) In 1468 Henry Dogett paid the same rent for a house facing the High Cross, and in 1570 Richard Cornwell sold a house there to Thomas Yate of Witney. (fn. 10c) Yate had earlier bought a shop on the north, the site of the demolished no. 4 Market Place, held by the Pargetter family from 1461. (fn. 11c) The house and shop remained in single ownership until the mid 18th century. In the early 17th century the Fly family let the house to the Gregorys, cutlers, and in the later 17th century it was owned by the Coopers, ironmongers. (fn. 12c) Before 1733 it was acquired by William Eldridge, whitesmith, whose family, steelmakers, ironmongers, and glovers, retained it until 1838. (fn. 13c) In 1749 George Eldridge sold the site of no. 4 Market Place, and it was occupied as a house or shop, only 12 ft. wide, until condemned and demolished in the 1960s. (fn. 14c)

George Eldridge (d. 1764) rebuilt no. 2 Market Place and no. 1 High Street as a house and shops. The steel jewellery shop apparently faced the Market Place, for the Eldridges later complained that the new town hall of 1766 VIII/275; X/23. Occupants of no. 13 are mentioned in deeds of no. 11 penes Mr. K. R. C. Pridham, Old Woodstock. obscured their window display for visitors returning from Blenheim. (fn. 15c) In the later 18th century the Eldridges had a glove shop in the same building. (fn. 16c) They also held the sites of nos. 3 and 5 High Street; in 1764 no. 3, a new house, was let and soon afterwards no. 5 was sold to Thomas Grantham, who may have manufactured steel there. (fn. 17c) In 1838 the Eldridge's corner premises in the centre of Market Place', possibly including nos. 3 and 5, were said to comprise 4 houses containing 6 show shops, 12 bedrooms, and 3 kitchens. (fn. 18c)

Later owners included, from the 1860s, G. G. Banbury (d. 1911) and the Brothertons. W. C. Brotherton, Banbury's son-in-law, closed his shoe shop at no. 6 Market Street c. 1900 (fn. 19c) and his furniture warehouse and ironmonger's opened c. 1885 at no. 7 High Street, in 1905. (fn. 20c) By 1903 he was selling hardware and furniture at nos. 1-3 High Street. (fn. 21c) The family business was closed in 1977 and the name preserved in Brotherton's Wine Bar. (fn. 22c) From the mid 19th century until the 1930s or later no. 2 Market Place was let separately as a house and grocer's shop. (fn. 23c) No. 3 High Street, used as a private house in the mid 20th century, was later turned into a shop. No. 5 was occupied from the early 20th century by Charles Banbury, newsagent and stationer, whose business, the Woodstock Press, continued until the late 1940s. (fn. 24c)

No. 2 Market Place and no. 1 High Street are of the mid 18th century, but the east range of no. 1 lacks storey bands and may be slightly later. Shop windows added in the late 19th century included, in the east range, a twostoreyed display window in a wood case with a re-used 18th-century carved tympanum. No. 3 High Street, presumably the new house of c. 1764, has a 19th-century shop window incorporating re-used woodwork; a carriage entrance on the east was blocked in the mid 20th century. No. 5 High Street is of the late 17th century refronted in the late 19th or early 20th century. (fn. 25c)

54. The Town Hall

The site of the High Cross. (fn. 26c)

55. Nos. 2-4 Market Street

The site of the medieval guild hall and the 18th-century market house or shambles. (fn. 27c)

56. The Woodstock Arms

The building occupies three sites long held by the corporation. (fn. 28c) On the west, next to the guild hall, was a tenement held in the earlier 16th century by John Phillips of Kirtlington and sold in 1553 to John Crossley. (fn. 29c) The Crossleys' tenant from the early 17th century was Thomas Heathen, serjeant-at-mace, (fn. 30c) who before 1638 acquired the freehold, which his grandson sold to the corporation in 1699. The house was rebuilt and let to successive serjeants. (fn. 31c) The Heathens and later serjeants were licensed alehouse keepers and under Thomas Norris, serjeant 1738-72, the house was the Woodstock Arms. (fn. 32c) After the death of George Wilsden in 1838 the connexion with the serjeanty was broken. (fn. 33c)

In 1879 the Woodstock Arms was merged with corporate property on the east. A tenement in Woolmarket Street owned in 1528 by the wardens of St. Mary's chantry may be identified by its rent of 16s. as that let by the corporation in the later 16th century to Henry Wilkinson and later to John Dubber. (fn. 34c) It was on the site of the east half of the Woodstock Arms and behind it stood the town's wool barn, usually excepted from leases of the plot in the 17th century but sometimes held with it; (fn. 35c) William Perring (d. 1700), tailor, held both house and barn, but thereafter the barn was not mentioned. Perring and his successor John Puddle, tenant until the 1730s, were alehouse keepers, and the house was named the Three Tuns by 1742. (fn. 36c) In 1735 the corporation agreed to let it to James Simmons, builder, on condition that he rebuild it in stone 'as high as the serjeant's house'. (fn. 37c) It was probably then that the plot was divided to provide a narrow house and shop on the west. (fn. 38c) On the south the Three Tuns plot extended to High Street; the Beckleys, tenants from the mid 18th century, had a cottage and blacksmith's shop on the site of no. 7 High Street, which may have replaced the wool barn. (fn. 39c) In 1813 Halls' Oxford Brewery became lessee of the Three Tuns, which was soon afterwards renamed the Duke of Wellington and, shortly before 1830, the Royal Oak. (fn. 40c) In 1879 it was let with the adjacent house and shop to the tenant of the Woodstock Arms, (fn. 41c) and probably then the buildings were amalgamated. The corporation sold the Woodstock Arms during the Second World War.

The west part of the building, a threewindowed range with a central doorway, is substantially the house rebuilt in 1699, and the east part, a five-windowed range of which the west end was presumably the former tailor's house and shop, is that rebuilt in 1735-7; the whole was refenestrated in the 19th century and the interior much altered. The site of no. 7 High Street, let separately by the corporation in the later 19th century as a cottage and shed, was used from the 1880s by W. C. Brotherton as a furniture warehouse and probably rebuilt in 1892 as the surviving house and shop. (fn. 42c)

57. Nos. 14-22 Market Street (the Feathers hotel)

The Dorchester hotel, opened by 1947, amalgamated several houses and was renamed the Feathers in the 1980s. (fn. 43c) The east and central parts of the north range occupy the site of a former chantry property held in 1554 by Thomas Colles and acquired by the corporation in 1565. (fn. 44c) Like other chantry property it was probably granted away by the corporation on condition of rebuilding; its reserved rent of 13s. 4d. was reduced to 10s. in the early 17th century when attached land on Oxford Street was separated. (fn. 45c) The Hammond family, undertenants of the Market Street plot in the earlier 17th century, ran an alehouse. (fn. 46c) By the early 18th century the site was in two ownerships and later comprised three houses, of which the westernmost, containing the hotel's north entrance, was acquired in 1799 by Joseph Dewsnap, glover. Dewsnap also held the tall corner block on the west which occupies the site of a house owned in the late 16th century by Ralph Bradshaw, mercer, and of a small corner shop which Bradshaw added c. 1600 as an encroachment on the street. (fn. 47c) Later owners included William Bradshaw, mercer (d. 1616), Alderman Nicholas Mayott (d. 1660), and Alderman John Brotherton, ironmonger (d. 1727). In the 1780s the house and shop seem to have been reconstructed as one building. (fn. 48d) Dewsnap (d. 1812) presumably had a glove factory behind his houses, which were still called Glove Hall when owned by William Mavor, rector, in the 1830s, although no longer let to glovers. (fn. 49d) Later the corner block was occupied by the Woodstock Literary Institute, (fn. 50d) perhaps from its foundation in 1852 when the building belonged to the Revd. John Carlyle. The Raine family were owners from c. 1860 until the closure of the Institute in 1894. In the early 20th century the corner block was a butcher's shop. (fn. 51d)

No. 14 Market Street was the site of a former chantry property flanked on the west and north by Woolmarket Street until Bradshaw's shop was built on its north side c. 1600. It was acquired by the corporation in 1565 and granted in 1569 to Peter Densyll on condition that he rebuild two bays of housing. (fn. 52d) The house was occupied in the 17th century by the Rathbone and Jenkins families, passing by will in 1716 to Adam Bellinger. (fn. 53d) The Bellingers, carriers and corn factors, held it until the late 19th century. (fn. 54d)

The range east of the hotel's north door is of the early 19th century; the block on the west was refronted at that time but contains 17th-century stairs and other woodwork and 18th-century panelling and chimney pieces. A medieval stone statue, perhaps of the Virgin Mary, reset above the north door was discovered during rebuilding in the 1950s. (fn. 55d) The corner block, of brick with stone dressings, is of the late 18th century, much altered on the ground floor in the mid 20th century. No. 14, once called Warwick House, an imposing, apparently late 18th-century, brick building with stone dressings and a parapet, may have been built in 1807 after a serious fire was recorded at the Bellingers'; (fn. 56d) the arched carriage entrance retains its original doors. The building was evidently linked with no. 12 Market Street, acquired by the Bellingers in the early 18th century and rebuilt in 1888.

58. Nos. 31-3 Oxford Street

In the later 16th century the site was vacant ground, the site of a demolished house once attached to a chantry property in Market Street. (fn. 57d) It was held in the early 17th century by the tenant of the adjacent corner house, and was built on before 1652. (fn. 58d) By 1733 it was an alehouse, the Adam and Eve, a sign apparently retained until the late 18th century; a later Adam and Eve, no. 38 Oxford Street, closed in the earlier 20th century, was an alehouse by the 1760s, presumably under a different name. (fn. 59d) The Morley family, smiths, occupied nos. 31-3 from the 1790s until the late 19th century. The Pitts have been fishmongers there from c. 1910. The house retains early 17th-century features, notably re-used carved wood lintels, but was much altered in the 18th century and 19th.

59. Nos. 23-9 Oxford Street

In the 1560s the corporation granted two former chantry houses on the site to John Pyman on condition that he rebuild. (fn. 60d) The houses, which included a malthouse, passed to the Collingwood family in the late 16th century and may be traced to the 1870s, when John Parker rebuilt them in stone and ornamental brick as four houses and shops. (fn. 61d)

60. Nos. 17-19 Oxford Street

Probably the site of the Rose and Crown inn, held in the early 17th century by Thomas Williams, mayor, later by the Drinkwaters, and from 1673 until the 1750s by their relatives, the Dennetts; in 1662 Elizabeth Drinkwater's house was assessed on six hearths. (fn. 62d) The inn, by then sometimes called the Crown, was turned into a private house c. 1768 by John Churchill. (fn. 63d) When sold by the Churchills in 1840 it comprised a house (no. 17) and a public house, the Coach and Horses. (fn. 64d) From 1862 both parts belonged to Halls' Oxford Brewery; the public house was renamed the Rose and Crown by 1871 and the Coach and Horses again by 1881. It was probably closed in the late 19th century although owned by the brewery until c. 1930. (fn. 65d) The building is probably of the early 18th century, with canted bays and other windows of the early 19th.