No. 16: St Giles’ House
St Giles’ House at 16 St Giles, formerly known as the Judge’s Lodgings, is now part of St John’s College and lies in St Giles' parish.
It is Grade II* listed (List Entry No. 1047136), as are its garden house (1047042) and its gates and piers (1359647). Its driveway to the south is Grade II listed (1047135). It was built in 1702 for Thomas Rowney the Elder, and this lead plaque still survives on the roof:
Pevsner describes it thus:
Built in 1702, the best house of its date in Oxford. Seven-bay ashlar façade with a pedimented three-bay projection and quoins. Later, rather dull doorway with doric pilasters and a straight entablature. Gatepiers with gorgeous urns. At the back an equally gorgeous decorated shell-hood. The front also originally had a shell-hood. Staircases with twisted balusters, and a plaster ceiling with a fine rich oval wreath of flowers.
This house is named “The Mansion” on the 1876 Street Plan of Oxford.
This photograph shows St Giles' House in 1890 (Historic England HT06855):
The house was described thus by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, published in 1939:
(183) The Judge's Lodging (Plate 216) … is of two storeys with cellars and attics; the walls are ashlar-faced and the roofs are covered with slates and lead. It was built in 1702 but the N. part was remodelled c.1800 and there is a late 18th-century cottage against the S. side. The front is symmetrically designed with rusticated angles and finished with a cornice having a pediment over the central bay; the windows have architraves and the lower range also cornices; the central doorway has been altered. The attics have gabled dormers. This front has been recently refaced. The back has similar windows, cornice and dormers; the doorway (Plate 8) has a wooden semi-domical hood supported on carved brackets and having scrolls, cherub-heads and a basket of fruit and flowers. The doorway in the S. wall has a flat wooden hood and an original panelled door. On the lead flat of the roof is a plate inscribed "Thomas Rowney Esq. Elizabeth his wife, Anno 1702."
The front garden has an enclosure with stone gate and angle piers surmounted by cornices and vases; the wrought-iron gates have an ornamental band and cresting; the railings are plain. The entrance to the yard and carriage-way, on the S., seem to be later and in the wall, S. of the yard, is a doorway with a segmental head, key-block and cornice.
Inside the house, the entrance-hall is lined with bolection-moulded panelling, with cornice and dado-rail; the fireplace has a moulded marble surround. The staircase has twisted balusters, cut and bracketed strings and the rails are ramped over the grouped balusters forming newels. The ceiling (Plate 39) has a cornice and an oval panel with a richly modelled band of fruit and flowers; the spandrels have acanthus-ornament. The S.W. room is lined with bolection-moulded panelling with an enriched cornice; above the angle-fireplace is a panel with scrolled floral ornament and a second panel above with enriched mouldings. The back staircase has twisted balusters, close-strings and square newels with pendants; the walls have a panelled dado, with a handrail as capping. On the upper storey is a considerable amount of bolection-moulded panelling and some re-set panelling of c.1600; there are also some fireplaces with moulded surrounds.
Condition—Good.
Below: The rear of St Giles' House in 1890 (Historic England CC56/00727):
and the rear of St Giles’ House in May 2006:
Below: The dome of the summerhouse in the back garden. It is said to be based on the model made by James Gibbs in 1734 for the stone dome he designed for the Radcliffe Camera, which was built between 1737 and 1749.
The Rowney family, 1702–1797
St Giles’ House was built in 1702 for Thomas Rowney the elder (1668–1727) who had been baptised at St Giles' Church in Oxford on 38 April 1668. On 28 May 1691 he was described as being of the Inner Temple when he married Elizabeth Noel of Westminster at her parish church. They settled In Oxford, and their three children were baptised at St Giles' Church: Thomas (30 April 1668), Katharine (10 August 1670), and John (26 March and buried 15 July 1672). Thomas Rowney the Elder served as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire for 1691/2 and as MP for Oxford from 1695 to 1721. He died on 31 August 1727 and was buried at St Giles' Church, and his widow Elizabeth Rowney was buried with him three years later.
His son Thomas Rowney the younger (1693–1759) succeeded him as MP in 1721 and also lived here in St Giles' House. He paid for Oxford's earlier Town Hall of 1752 to replace the old guildhall: his statue that stood in a niche on that building lay for some years outside Oxfordshire History Centre. On 16 March 1756 at Spelsbury Church when he was a bachelor aged about 59 he married Mary Trollope. Rowney donated land for the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1758. He died on 29 October 1759 after falling from his horse in an apoplectic fit on returning from hunting and was buried at St Giles' Church on 4 November. He left St Giles' House to his wife Mary, provided that she continued to live there and did not remarry. At the time of the 1772 Survey of Oxford the house was duly occupied by Mrs Rowney, and its frontage was recorded as 28 yards and 2 feet (the widest in St Giles). Mary Rowney died at the age of 73 on 27 January 1797 and was buried with her husband.
Occupants from 1807 to 1964
From at least 1806 to her death in 1830 Mrs Oglander lived here.
Mrs S. Speakman is listed here in the Post Office Directory of 1841, but that year's census shows the surgeon Charles Webb living here with his wife Elizabeth and their children Eliza (18), Sarah (15), Philip (10), Percival (8), Frank (7), and Caroline (5), plus a young surgeon called Howell (surname uncertain), an independent young lady called Louisa Thompson, and four servants. Charles Webb died at the age of 58 on 9 July 1848. His widow Elizabeth Webb remained in the house, and the 1851 census shows her and her three children living here with her sister Miss Sarah Speakman (60), a proprietor of houses who was now the head of the household, plus one servant. A dressmaker called Mary Bunting and her servant are also listed under the house and probably lived in the cottage in the back garden.
Miss Sarah Speakman is listed here in Gardner's Directory for 1852, but in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 10 April 1852 it was reported that:
an offer has been made by Mr. William Herbert, to let for the Judges' lodgings, at the two Assizes yearly, at the rent of 130l., the mansion house, No. 16, St. Giles's-street, Oxford, for many years the residence of Mrs Oglander, and aftewards of Mr. Webb, surgeon.
Mr. Herbert's offer included an assurance that, connected with his business of an upholsterer, he should be enabled and would undertake to furnish the house, and from time to time renew the furniture in a style consistent with the rank
For 113 years from 1852 to 1965 the house (although in the occupation of other people) was used by the Judge at the twice-yearly Assizes and became known as the Judge’s Lodgings.
William Herbert was described as being of Blackhall Farm when he died in 1859.
In 1861 No. 16 was occupied by the retired boatbuilder Isaac King (68) and his wife Mary and their widowed daughter Mrs Mary Anne Herbert (34) and her child Mary Lucy King Herbert (2), plus a cook, housemaid, nursemaid, and manservant. (Their gardener and his family were also listed under No. 16, but they probably lived in the cottage in its back garden.) Isaac King died here at the age of 75 on 7 May 1868, and the 1871 census shows his widow Mary Ann King again living here with her widowed daughter and her granddaughter, plus four servants. Mary Ann King died here at the age of 71 on 3 April 1872. Her widowed daughter Mary Ann Herbert remained in the house died here three years later at the age of 49 on 23 July 1875.
The lease of the house had been granted to the County during the Assizes for a term of 21 years, which Mrs Herbert had refused to renew the lease to the County allowing the Assize Judges to lodge here, but after her death in 1875 they negotiated with her executors for a four-year lease from March 1876. St John's College granted the County a forty-year lease from 5 April 1886, and this was extended to a term of 40 years from 5 April 1900.
On 3 November 1875 Oxford High School was founded in this building. It then had just three forms and three teachers. In 1879 the school moved into 38 St Giles for two years, before moving again to 21 Banbury Road at the beginning of 1881.
At the time of the 1881 census No. 16 was listed as unoccupied, while Henry Plummer (61), a tinman & brazier, lived in the cottage behind with his wife Elizabeth and their grandson.
By 1887 the house was occupied by Edward Augustus Freeman, Regius Professor of Modern History, and the 1891 census shows him living here with his wife Mary and their daughter plus their six servants (a cook, two housemaids, a parlour maid, a kitchen maid, and a pantry boy). A housekeeper lived independently in the cottage behind.
Directories from 1895 to 1905 state that the main house at No. 16 was occupied by the barrister David Watson Rannie, but the 1901 census shows William Baillie Skene (62), the Treasurer of Christ Church, living there with his wife Lorina and five of their children, plus a governess and eight servants. The cottage behind was occupied by Mary Whitman, the wife of the head of the household, and their four children.
The 1911 census shows Miss Mary Eliza Mabel Price (49) living in this 18-roomed house with her younger sister and brother and six servants, and she was still here in 1921 with her sister Elinor and four servants. The cottage at the back was then occupied by Alfred Whitman (56), an unemployed butler, with his son and his father-in-law Samuel Nickols, and he was also still there in 1921 working as a temporary butler, while his wife Mary was working as the housekeeper of the Judge's Lodgings (the main house).
From 1926 to 1929 the house was occupied by John Davidson Beazley, the Lincoln & Merton Professor of Classical Archaeology & Art, and then from 1930 to 1932 by Sir John Wormald.
The last private occupant, from 1935 to 1964, was Sir Arthur Cecil McWatters, a Professorial Fellow of Trinity College and Secretary to the University Church. The 1939 Register shows him here with his wife Lady (Constance Finney) McWatters and their chef, housekeeper, and two housemaids. The cottage at the back was then occupied by the car-works polisher Ernest C. Payne and his wife Florence and their two children, and three lodgers.
St John's College annexe from 1966
In September 1966 St John's College received planning permission (66/17414/A_H) for “Alterations and change of use from residential to college music and teaching rooms with provision of three flats” at 16 St Giles' Street.
In 2020 there was a full refurbishment of 16 St Giles' Street, and this second plaque was placed on the roof:
Occupants of 16 St Giles’ Street listed in censuses and directories |
|
1702–1797 |
The Rowney family |
By 1806– |
Mrs Oglander (died 1830) |
1841–1852 |
Charles Webb, Surgeon, occupied No. 16 at the time of the 1841 census, but his sister-in-law Miss Sarah Speakman is listed in directories of 1841 and 1846 directories as the occupant. Charles Webb died on 9 July 1848, and the 1851 census shows Miss Sarah Speakman as the head of the houshold here here with her widowed sister Mrs Webb |
1861 |
Thomas A. Lister |
1866–1875 |
Isaac King (1866–1868) |
1875–1879 |
Oxford High School |
1882–1884 |
Rev. W. Cape |
1887–1891 |
Edward Augustus Freeman,
M.A., Hon. D.C.L. |
1893–1894 |
Vacant |
1895–1905 |
David Watson Rannie |
1906–1910 |
Vacant |
1911–1925 |
Miss Mary Eliza Mabel Price |
1926–1929 |
John Davidson Beazley,
M.A. |
1930–1932 |
Sir
John Wormald,
KBE, MICE, JP |
1935–1964 |
Sir Arthur Cecil McWatters |
1965–present |
Part of St John’s College |