32 Holywell Street is a seventeenth-century house with an early nineteenth-century front. It is owned by Wadham College.
It is a Grade II Listed Building (1047230), with the following description:
No 32 SP 5106 NE 6/197 12.1.54. II GV 2.
House. RCHM 199. A Cl7 house with an early C19 front of [three]-storeyed ashlar on a stone plinth, a moulded eaves cornice, small parapet and brick stacks. On the East is a coachway. The ground floor has three modern sash windows in plain reveals with stone cills and there is a band at the first floor. The front doorway has a stone moulded frame with flat pilasters and a moulded entablature with an ornament of two roses over the caps. The first floor has five modern sash windows in plain reveals with stone cills. The second floor has the same but the centre window is blind. On the North at the back the upper storey is plastered and has a Venetian window facing North in the ground floor which is of ashlar. Further North the wing is partly C17 timber-framed and has an overhang on the East timber-framed and has 3 ancient gables and modern sash windows.
Interior: RCHM p. 180b Includes some reset panelling of circa 1600 and an early C18 fireplace.
The archway on the right led to stables, which were behind No. 31 next door and back-to-back with the livery stables at No. 30. (These later became Brasenose College stables.)
This house was advertised for sale by private contract on 26 June 1784:
A Large Stone-built DWELLING-HOUSE, fit for the immediate Reception of a genteel Family; with Double Coach-House, Stabling for four Horses, and a large Garden, walled-in, with Right of Commons in an adjacent Meadow.
For further Particulars enquire on the Premisses, net Door but one below the Music Room, in Holiwell.
Mrs Elizabeth Morrell lived here in the early 1840s. She died here at the age of 69 and was buried in St Cross churchyard on 12 February 1846. A forthcoming auction of the contents of this house was advertised on 5 June 1847.
When the remainder of the lease was advertised for sale in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 11 February 1888, it was described as a commodious and desirable residence that had two large gardens with coach house and stabling.
The physician Robert Jackson was at this house by 1851, and he remained here until his death at the age of 76 in 1887. His furniture was advertised for sale on 11 February 1888. This remained a doctor’s house until 1943, and then in 1945 it became a chiropodist’s.
From 1962 to 1976 it formed the University’s Faculty of Music with No. 33 next door.
32 Holywell Street in the censuses
1841
The 1841 census for Holywell does not give house numbers, but it is possible to deduce where people listed that year lived by examining directory entries between 1839 and 1842 and later censuses
Elizabeth Morrell (60), independent, lived here with another independent lady and one male and two female servants.
1851
Robert Jackson (40), a Physician, lived here with his wife Margaret (31) and five servants: a footman, groom, cook, housemaid, and kitchenmaid.
1861
Robert Jackson (50), a physician, still lived here with his wife Margaret (41), and their children Mary (6) and Francis (2). They had five servants: a footman, nurse, cook, housemaid, and kitchenmaid.
1871
Robert Jackson (60), a physician, still lived here with his wife Margaret (57) and their four servants (a cook, parlourmaid, housemaid, and kitchenmaid).
1881
Robert Jackson (70), a physician, still lived here with his wife Margaret (61) and his daughter Mary (26). They had four servants (a cook, a housemaid, a general servant, and kitchenmaid).
1891
Walter Tyrrell Brooks (31), a physician, and his wife Adelaide (31) lived here with their children Walter (7), Hugh (6), Adelaide (5), Gwendoline (3), and John (1). They had three servants (a housemaid, cook, and nurse).
1901
Dr Walter Brooks was away on census night, but the house was occupied by his wife Adelaide Brooks (41) and his children Adelaide (15), Gwendoline (13), and John (11). They had three servants (a cook and two housemaids).
1911
William Sturrock (30), a medical practitioner, lived here with his wife May and three servants.
1921
The physician William Sturrock (41) was still here with his wife Mary and their son John (6), and his aunt Caroline Sturrock (71), plus two boarders and two servants.
1939 Register
The physician William Duncan Sturrock was again still here with his wife Mary and their servant.
Occupants of 32 Holywell Street listed in directories etc. |
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1772 |
Mr Watson |
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1841 |
Miss Elizabeth Morrell |
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1851–1887 |
Robert Jackson, M.D. |
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1889 |
Revd G. R. Browne |
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1889–1916 |
Walter Tyrrell Brooks, Physician |
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1911–1943 |
William Duncan Sturrock, Physician & Surgeon Mrs Sturrock in 1943 |
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1945–1960 |
Miss H. J. Norwood, M.Ch.S., chiropodist with Basil A. Brickwood (1952–1958) and H. J. Brickwood (from 1960) |
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1962–1976 |
Oxford University Faculty of Music |
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Today |
Part of Wadham College |
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