132: Endorphins Dessert Café
No. 132 dates from the fifteenth century, but has been much altered. On the east side of the house in the passageway is some original fifteenth-century studding with the remains of two original timber doorways, one with roses on the lintel.
It is Grade II listed together with the Chequers Inn behind (List Entry No. 1186736). It was in the parish of All Saints until that church closed in 1971, and is now in the parish of St Michael-at-the-Northgate Church.
In 1772 a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. No. 132 was then in the occupation of a Mr Goddard, and its frontage measured 8 yards 0 feet 7 inches. This would be Howell Goddard, who announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 20 June 1776 that he had given up the Chequers pub behind but would continue his business here as a hatter, hosier, and haberdasher.
At the time of the 1841 census the boot & shoemaker Howell Goddard Tagart lived over his shop here with his wife Jane and their children Jane, Thomas, Ann, and Amy, plus two female servants.
By the time of the 1851 census the boot & shoemaker here was Henry Hatch,, and he lived over his shop with his wife Eliza and their four children, plus two of his shop assistants and a general servant. He was described as the employer of five people.
On 24 January 1852 the bootmaker Howell Goddard Tagart announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal that he would be resuming his former business here. The 1861 census shows him as a widower of 62 living here with his five children and their servant. He was still listed here as a widower in 1871 with four of his children and their servant. In 1875 he married his second wife Sarah White, and the 1881 census shows him living here with Sarah and their four young children, his older sister, his younger brother (who was a banker’s clerk), plus a nursemaid and a servant girl aged 13. Tagart died here at the age of 79 on 27 March 1878.
The next occupant of No. 132 was John Coombs, a cook with ten children who ran a restaurant here from 1889.
The advertisement on the right boasting that he had the only cookshop in the city appeared in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 30 September 1892.
Coombs went bankrupt in 1894 (see Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 10 March that year) and was described as being late of 132 High Street when he died at Howard Street at the age of 41 just two months later on 14 May.
From 1895 to 1908 this shop was May's Drug Stores
(see enamel plaque, right). At the time of the 1891 census the cook John Coombs (38) lodged upstairs with his wife Emma, their seven children, two boarders, and two servants. There was no one living at this shop at the time of the 1901 census.
From 1909 to 1915 the Oxford Drug Company Ltd was at No. 132, and no one was living on the premises at the time of the 1911 census. .
This shop was the Belfast Linen Warehouse from 1921 to 1967.
Their advertisement on the left dates from the 1950s.
Photograph of No. 132 in 1949, when it was the Belfast Linen Warehouse
Occupiers of 132 High Street | |
1839–1841+ |
Howell Goddard Tagart, Boot & shoe maker |
By 1846–1851 |
Henry Hatch, Boot & shoe maker |
1852–1887 |
Howell Goddard Tagart (later Tagart & Son), Boot & shoe makers |
1889–1894 |
John Coombs, Cook shop & dining rooms |
1895–1908 |
May’s Drug Stores Ltd |
1909–1915 |
Oxford Drug Co Ltd |
1921–1967 |
Belfast Linen Warehouse |
1970–2006 |
Bristol & West Building Society (later PLC) |
2006–2008 |
Britannia Building Society |
2009–2020 |
Hotel Chocolat |
2020–2023 |
Vacant |
2023– |
Endorphins Dessert Café |
