Oxford Ghost Signs: Corn Exchange Hotel, Chain Alley
This ghost sign is on the side of the Corn Exchange in George Street and faces Chain Alley. It reads:
CORN EXCHANGE HOTEL,
MORRELL'S ALES & STOUT
BREWED [?FROM PURE MALT AND HOPS?]
NO SUBSTITUTES
The photograph below shows the sign in context. The building on the corner was built by Morrell's in 1899/1900.
The original Welsh Pony public house at Gloucester Green was first mentioned in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 3 July 1869.
On 4 February 1899 Jackson's Oxford Journal reported
PROPERTY AND ESTATES COMMITTEE.
The committee reported that they had entered into a provisional arrangement by which the trustees of Mr. and Mrs. G. Herbert Morrell have agreed to take the piece of land at the corner of Chain-Alley, George-street, on a building lease for the residue of a term of 75 years from the 29th September 1896 (being the term of which the adjoining property, the Corn Exchange Hotel, is held), at a ground rent of ten pounds a year. The plans of any building proposed to be erected on the land are to be submitted to and approved by the committee, and the old buildings at present on the site are to be removed by and at the expense of the trustees within one month from the confirmation of this agreement by the council.
Presumably the original Welsh Pony pub was demolished in the process. Then on 14 July 1900 Morrell's inserted the following advertisement:
TO be LET, with early possession,—The CORN EXCHANGE HOTEL. New and commodious premises.—For particulars apply to the Manager, Lion Brewery, Oxford.
By October 1900 a man called Goddard held the licence of the Corn Exchange Hotel, whose address was given as Gloucester Green.
From 1914 the Welsh Pony is listed on this site under George Street, with Bert Ray its landlord.
At the time of the 1921 census the publican at the Welsh Pony was Victor Hugo Hohus, a Belgian man aged 29, and he lived at the pub with his Oxford-born wife Ethel Hohaus (33).
The building that housed the Corn Exchange Hotel and the Welsh Pony is now the Oxo bar and hotel.