No. 4: On the site of The Store Hotel
No. 4 Broad Street stood on a site towards the left-hand side of the present Store Hotel. It was one of the five houses/shops demolished in 1928 to make way for Boswell House, which in the early 2020s was converted into The Store Hotel.
The old house at 4 Broad Street prior to 1928
No. 4 Broad Street was a private house in St Michael-at-the-Northgate parish. At the time of the 1772 Survey of Oxford it was jointly occupied with No. 5 to the left by Miss Goodenough, and the pair of houses had a combined frontage of 14yds 0ft 7in.
No. 4 appears to have been occupied by Miss Mary Hoskins (or Hoskyns) from at least the 1820s until her death in 1841.
Miss Mary HoskinsThe drawing below by W. A. Delamotte (engraved by Orlando Jewitt) shows Miss Hoskins (or Hoskyns) in 1834 in her back garden in Broad Street in from which she had a good view of the Martyrs' Bastion:
Miss Mary Hoskins was born at Witney on 7 October 1756, the eldest child of the Revd Charles Hoskins and Mary Holloway, who were married at St Mary's Church in Witney on 28 June 1755. Her father was the Curate of Witney, and she had eight younger siblings: John Holloway Hoskins (b. 1758, died 1768), James Williams Hoskins (b.1759), Anne Hoskins (b.1761, died 1780), Charlotte Hoskins (b.1763, died 1771), Jane Hoskins (b.1765, died 1778), Katharine Hoskins (b.1767, died 1780), Elizabeth Hoskins (b.1769, died 1792), and Margaret Hoskins (b.1771). Only three of her siblings, however, reached adulthood. Mary's father died in September 1771 and her mother in March 1779. Mary's sister Margaret Hoskins married Nicholas Earle, the Rector of Swerford, on 16 April 1796. Her brother James William Hoskins was a Fellow of Magdalen College and then Rector of Appleton in Berkshire from 1802 until his death on 10 July 1844. In 1832 his daughter Frances Mary Hoskins married the bookshop owner John Henry Parker and came to live in Broad Street. Miss Hoskins is listed at Broad Street in the Gentry list in Pigot's Directory of 1830, and the 1841 census shows her on her own there with two female servants and a lodger. She was then 84 years old, but the census wrongly states that she was 70. Miss Mary Hoskins signed her will on 29 October 1841 and died just five days later on 3 November and was buried at St Michael's Church on 9 November. Her age when she died was 85, but it is recorded as 86 in the parish register and here on the plaque inside the church. |
The Broad Street houses are numbered for the first time in the 1851 census, but the numbers are confused, with the pub at No. 2 wrongly given the number 3. The tea dealer Rebecca Fairbairn is listed with her servant at No. 4, but that is probably No. 3, in which case there is no listing for this house.
At the time of the 1861 census the Revd Herbert Henry Cornish (49), a clergyman without cure of souls, lived in the old house at 4 Broad Street with his wife Mary and his nephew Charles Athelstan Cornish (10), plus a servant. He is listed here in directories to 1866.
From 1867 the upholsterer William Baker is listed at No. 4, and the 1871 census shows him here with his wife, adopted daughter, and great-niece, plus a servant. He is last listed in the directory for 1872.
From 1875 to 1890 Edward Ross Wharton, a tutor, is listed here: he and his wife Sarah were visiting relations in Marylebone at the time of the 1881 census and so No. 4 is listed as unoccupied. .
From 1890 to 1894 the surgeon Arthur John Drew is listed at No. 4, and the 1891 census shows him living here at the age of 30 with two servants.
In 1895 and 1896 the surgeon Robert Hitchings is listed at the house. There was no one listed there in directories in 1898 and 1899, and then the consulting ophthalmic optician John T. Gradon is listed there from 1899 to 1901. The 1901 census shows him at the age of 32 living over his practice with his wife Mary, two servants, a pupil, and a boarder.
The solicitor William H. Baker is listed at 4 Broad Street in 1902 and 1903, and A. J. Herbertson, Lecturer in Regional Geography and Curator of the School of Geography, from 1904 to 1906.
A view of the back garden of No. 4 and the bastion in 1907 (Historic England HT10593):
In 1908 and 1909 the Revd Paul Jerome Kirkby, Fellow of New College, is listed here.
From 1910 to 1918 Miss Harriet Anderson lived here. The 1911 census shows that the ten rooms at 4 Broad Street were occupied by Miss Anderson, a 38-year-old American, and her four servants (a lady's maid, cook, parlour-maid, and housemaid).
The old house at No. 4 is not listed in directories after 1918, but the poet W. B. Yeats lived in the old house at this address for about five years from that date.
Demolition of the old house at 4 Broad Street
This photograph shows the demolition of 1–5 Broad Street taking place in 1928:
- On the left is part of No. 6 Broad Street which survives today
- Then come a pair of large semi-detached dwellings with their roofs removed:
No. 5 is on the left of the pair, and this house at No. 4 is on the right - Then to the right again are the demolished remains of Nos. 3, 2, and 1 Broad Street
- Out of sight on the corner is William Baker's new shop of 1915, which survives today
The later No. 4 (1928–2021) in Boswell House
Now part of
The Store Hotel
As this photograph taken in August 1936 shows, the ground-floor shop pictured above that was numbered 4 from the mid-1950s was prior to that date numbered 4A and 4B and occupied by two businesses that had been made homeless when Boswell House was built. These are the tobacconist Edwin M. Staniland (formerly at 2 Broad Street) now at 4A on the right and the confectioner Thomas H. Long (formerly at 3 Broad Street) now at 4B on the left.
N.B. Confusingly, until the mid 1950s the number 4 proper was allocated to a different
part of Boswell House to the west, which was later absorbed into the numbering 1–3.
Werff Bros (tailors) were at this different No. 4 from 1932 to 1947, and then the shop
was occupied very briefly by the Trueform Boot Company
From 1958 No. 4 was a single shop unit on the ground floor, occupied by Lavell's Ltd (confectioners) until the late 1970s and then from 1982 by Wendy News (right). On 25 October 2019 bailiffs entered the building and determined the lease of Wendy News, and the shop remained unoccupied right up to the conversion of Nos. 1–5 Broad Street into the Store Hotel
Occupants of the 1928 shop at 4 Broad Street from 1932 to 2020 |
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4B (left) |
4A (right) |
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1932–1949 |
Thomas H. Long |
Edwin M. Staniland |
1952–1954 |
Lutons Ltd, |
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1958–1976 |
Lavell’s Ltd, |
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1982–2019 |
Wendy News |
|
2019–2021 |
|
|
2021–2024 |
Undergoing building work |
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2024 |
Part of The Store Hotel |
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The premises underwent building work from 2021 to 2024, since when the whole of Boswell House at Nos. 1–5 Broad Street has been part of the Store Hotel.
Above: The Store Hotel which opened in 2024 occupies the whole of Boswell House.
The frontage
of the
1928 shop in Boswell House that was numbered 4 Broad Street is the second bay from the left