Oxford History: The High

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No. 34 has an early eighteenth-century frontage on a seventeenth-century house. It is a Grade II listed building (List Entry No. 1047278).

It was in St Peter-in-the East parish until that parish was united with St Cross parish in 1957.

It has been owned by The Queen's College since 1908. It is in a group of six houses owned by that college running from 33 to 38 High Street.

No. 34 was formerly owned by University College and then Magdalen College.

 

In 1696 Sir Robert Harrison, twice Mayor of Oxford, paid tax on twenty windows at this house.

 

In 1772 a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. According to H. E. Salter, No. 34 was then in the occupation of a Mr Wickham, and its frontage measured exactly 8 yards. This was William Wickham, who took over the mercer's shop here after the death of his father Richard Wickham in 1721. On 25 March 1755 he took on the 15-year-old William Fletcher as his apprentice. He then went into partnership with Wickham and the shop here became Wickham & Fletcher, and after 1773 was continued by Fletcher alone.

 

Right: This detail from an engraving of 1755 shows that this tall four-storey shop looked much the same in Wickham's time as it does today, but the pink building to its east looked very different.

 

 

Below: No. 34 can also be seen just to the left of the centre in this detail from an 1834 engraving, partly hidden by the tree:

At the time of the 1841 census the solicitor John Matthews was recorded as living in this house with his three female servants, his wife and daughters evidently being away.

The surgeon James Torry Hester moved here later in 1841 and remained until 1847.

On 14 August 1847 the forthcoming auction of this house was advertised in Jackson's Oxford Journal:

SUPERIOR RESIDENCE, IN THE HIGH STREET, OXFORD.

MESSRS. J. and W. FISHER are instructed to SELL by AUCTION, at the Star Hotel, on Tuesday the 24th of August, at Three o'clock,—That capital HOUSE, in the best part of the High-street, opposite University College, now in the occupation of J. T. Hester, Esq., surgeon, and for many years of Mr. Matthews, solicitor. The House is commodious, containing a very elegant drawing room, good breakfast, dining, and sleeping rooms, water closet, and servants' offices, which are spacious and very complete. The building is substantial—the exterior handsome, and though in so central a situation there is a good garden at the back.

The property is held under Magdalen College for 40 years, from the 6th of August 1945.

At the time of the 1851 census this house was occupied by the widow Anne Prichard (60), an annuitant, with her daughter Edith and her widowed daughter-in-law Emma with her young daughter, plus two servants.

George Valentine Cox (1786–1875), the author of Recollections of Oxford (1868) who had previously lived in Cowley House (now part of St Hilda’s College), lived here at the time of the 1861 census: he was a widower of 75 described as an “M/A. & Esquire Bedel”, and living with him were his three unmarried daughters Frances (48), Emily (45), and Ellen (42), plus two house servants.

In 1866 the Scottish tailor and gentleman's mercer Joseph Alison Muir announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal that he had been appointed sole agent in Oxford for the sale of the archery goods of his father, Peter Muir of Edinburgh here at his shop at 33 High Street.

On 19 October 1867 the newspaper reported:

The house formerly occupied by Mr Valentine Cox, in the High-street, has been altered on the ground floor, so as to afford a shop window for Mr Muir, the present occupant. It is not an example of any particular school of art, yet the effect is decidedly pleasing.

The 1871 census shows the tailor Joseph Alison Muir (32) living on his premises here with his wife Eliza and his three children and his brother-in-law John Schofield who was a Cambridge undergraduate, and their two servants.

On 22 June 1872 an auction of this house was advertised in Jackson's Oxford Journal:

In the Centre of the HIGH STREET, Oxford
Being No. 34, and suitable either for Business or a Private Residence.
The valuable HOUSE, No. 34, with Garden. The situation is excellent, the exterior handsome, and the House very commodious. On the ground floor entrance—dining room (now used as a shop) and breakfast room; on the floors above—large front drawing room and seven bed rooms and water closet; in the basement—kitchen, scullery, larder, wine bins and coal cellar, and at the back thereof is a very good garden.
  This Property is held by lease from Magdalen College, for 40 years, from 6th August 1859, subject to a Quit Rent of £13 and Land Tax of £4 5s. 6d.

Muir had moved to 6 Broad Street by 1875.

By the time of the 1881 census, this shop had tenants upstairs: the college servant William Tomkins (8) with his wife Annie and their two children.

The 1891 census shows the tailor Robert Simmons (62) living upstairs with his wife Elizabeth, who kept a small lodging house here, and their daughter and servant.

The well-known Oxford photographer Henry Taunt moved to this shop in about 1895 from No. 41 High Street, and he remained here until 1906, when he removed all his work to his home on the Cowley Road. No one was living over the premises at the time of the 1901 census.

The hairdresser Victor Robert Edward Drewe had his business here from 1909 to 1931, but he lived at 18 Henley Street off the Iffley Road. At the time of the 1911 census the boarding house keeper Ada M. Turner occupied the ten rooms over the shop with her daughter Frieda and their servant. Mrs Turner was still here in 1921 with two students and a widow lodging with her.

Since 1941 the jeweller Reginald Davis has occupied the ground-floor shop. The upper floors are occupied by The Queen's College.