Oxford History: The High

Home

---

TOUR
THE HIGH

---

Views

History

Quotations

Contact/Search

No. 126 dates from the fifteenth century, and has a late seventeenth-century façade. It is the only remaining example of this type of architecture in Oxford. The structure of the fifteenth-century house can be seen inside, and the cellar is probably medieval.

It is a Grade I listed building (List Entry No. 1047260). Until early 2026 it was owned by Russell Acott Ltd, but was then purchased by Lincoln College. 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.

The first owner of this house was a bell-founder, and in 1350 it was owned by St Frideswide Abbey. It was refronted in the later seventeenth century, probably by Robert Pawling, a mercer who was Mayor in 1679.

In 1772 a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. No. 126 was then in the occupation of a Mr Madge, and its frontage measured 6 yards 2 feet 9 inches.

See also:

• Julian Munby, “126 High Street: The Archaeology and History of an Oxford House”, Oxoniensia 1975
• Heritage impact assessment under the Documents tab of planning application 26/01433/LBC by Lincoln College

Elizabethan wall painting in the offices of HMG Law

---

The Mallam family and this building

Thomas Mallam senior started a separate auctioneering business from his father’s business at St Aldate’s at this house, probably soon after his marriage in 1816, and in addition operated as a tobacconist and estate agent. He also served as Mayor of Oxford in 1839 and 1846.

After he died in 1850, one of his sons (Thomas Mallam junior) founded a firm of solicitors at No. 126, and the other (James Richard Mallam) took over the auctioneering and estate agent side of the business. In 1875 Mallams moved upstairs in these premises, accessed by the entrance to the right, and later also behind. It remained here until 2023, latterly in partnership with Herbert and Gowers as HMG Law.

HMG Law is now at 1 St Aldate's Street. while Mallam’s auction house is now in St Michael Street.

---

The above drawing made by W. A. Delamotte in 1834 and engraved by Orlando Jewitt shows No. 126 to the left. The photograph below (Historic England CC72/01890) shows the same scene in 1892:

The upstairs premises of No. 126 were occupied by various people:

• 1841 census: the tobacconist William Sylvester (35), living on his own
• 1851 census the railway porter Henry Hillier (36) and his seamstress wife Mary Anne (35) plus their servant
• 1861 census: the solicitor's clerk Henry Ives (25) and his wife Mary and their young son
• 1871 census: the bootmaker John Bate Cooper (59) and his servant
• 1881 & 1891  censuses: the auctioneer’s porter William Spindler and his wife Elizabeth.

No one is listed as living either at No. 126 or 126A at the time of the 1901 census (where the building is described as “Lawyers offices & Tea Dealers”), nor in 1911 or 1921.

Kendall umbrella makers (who also sold ladies' clothes) were based in this shop from 1921 to 1971. This photograph (POX0094658) dated February 1946 shows them at the shop, which then had a central door. They installed the current asymmetric shop front in 1954.

On 17 August 1971 planning application 71/24239/L_H for “Demolition of back part of the premises which has become unstable and reconstruction with modifications to render acceptable under Building Regulations” was approved. It had been classified as simply as an alteration, but when the rear half of this building was demolished in 1972 its true age was discovered towards the end of the works, with late sixteenth-century wall paintings being revealed.