No. 34: Vacant and for sale
Nos. 34 is on the right-hand side of a terrace of three houses (34, 35, and 36 St Giles’ Street). They are jointly Grade II listed (List Reference No. 1047141) and They lie in St Giles' parish. The block is nine bays wide and three storeys high, with attics and basements.
The Oxford builder Daniel Evans designed and built this house and its two adjoining neighbours in 1828/9 on a large plot of land leased for 99 years from the Oxford surgeon John Bull.
Evans chose to live this house himself, and let out the other two. The land at the back of this house stretched right around into Little Clarendon Street, where he established his new builder’s yard: this could easily be reached via a gate at the end of his back garden.
The 1841 census shows Daniel Evans, described as brickmaker, builder, and quarry owner, living here with his wife Elizabeth and their sole daughter (also Elizabeth, born in Bolton in 1804) and his son-in-law and partner in business Joshua Robinson Symm, who had joined him as a stonemason in the 1830s. Also living in the house were a lodger (Miss Anna Juliana Goodenough, described as a fundholder) and three female servants.
Evans died in November 1846 and Joshua R. Symm took over his business, remaining at this house until his death. The 1851 census shows him in this house at the age of 41 with his wife Elizabeth, their five-year-old daughter Hannah, and a cook and housemaid. They kept on Miss Goodenough as their lodger, and she was still living with them in 1861 at the age of 90. At the time of the 1871 census only their servants (the cook and two housemaids) were at home.
Symm built many of the well-known buildings of Oxford, including Exeter College Chapel in the late1850s and the Wesley Memorial Church in New Inn Hall Street in 1877/8, and his building firm grew enormously. The Symm building firm survived until 2020.
Symm’s only child Hannah died in 1875. The 1881 census shows Symm (71) described as the employer of 155 men, living here with his wife and his 18-year-old niece Mary Sim, plus three domestic servants.
Symm's wife Elizabeth died here on 28 April 1881 at the age of 77, and he remained in this house until his own death on 19 July 1887: a lifelong Methodist, he was buried at the Wesley Memorial Church that his firm had built ten years before.
Symm & Co. then purchased the freehold of No. 34 and it was let out to private tenants (initially at £25 a year).
The 1891 census shows house occupied by Bertram Hunt (35), a medical practitioner then living on his own means, and his wife and three children, plus three servants.
Charles Cannan and his family lived here from 1892 to 1894.
From 1896 Alfred Denis Godley, Fellow of Magdalen College and writer of humorous verse, occupied this house. At the time of the 1901 census he was here with his wife Amy plus their parlourmaid and housemaid.
In 1902 Peattie & Axtell (a related company) bought No. 34 from the old builders' partnership and continued to let it out. The Revd Herbert Louis Wild, the Vicar of St Giles' Church, lived here from 1910 to 1913. The 1911 census shows him here with his wife and four young children, plus their four servants (a cook, a nurse, a nursemaid, and a housemaid).
The Revd Charles Fox Burney moved here in 1914, and the 1921 census shows him here at the age of 52 and described as an Oxford Professor and Canon of Rochester. Living with him were his wife Ethel (30) and their three young children – including Venetia (2) who was to find fame in 1930 for naming the planet Pluto –, plus their cook, children's nurse, and nursery maid. He died on 15 April 1925.
In 1926 No. 34 ceased to be a family home and was converted into offices. In 1933 the group of three houses at 34–36 St Giles was sold by Exeter College to the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Oxford, but the use of this house as an Income Tax and Land Office remained unchanged.
From 1937 to 1939 this was the office of the Unemployment Assistance Board, and the 1939 Register lists John Jobling Pender, described as an unemployment assistance officer, living here with his wife Joan
From 1952 to 1999 No. 34 was the home of the Oxford & County Secretarial College (or “Ox & Cow”) . It is now used by the University of Oxford.
In 2004 an Oxfordshire blue plaque remembering both Daniel Evans and his son-in-law Joshua Symm was installed on this house.
From 2017 this building was part of the Oxford Internet Institute. This had three sites on St Giles' Street (the others being No. 1 and No. 41), and they all moved to the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in 2025.
The freehold of No. 34 is currently advertised for sale as an office with accommodation over five floors.
Occupants of 34 St Giles’ Street listed in censuses and directories |
|
1829–1846 |
Daniel Evans, Builder* |
1846–87 |
Joshua Robinson Symm, Builder* |
1889–1891 |
Bertram Hunt, M.B., M.R.C.S. |
1892–1894 |
Charles Cannan, M.A. |
1896–1901 |
Alfred Denis Godley, M.A. |
1902–1907 |
1902: Mrs Austin |
1909 |
Philip Edward Homer Adams, Surgeon |
1910–1913 |
Rev. Herbert Louis Wild, Vicar of St Giles' Church |
1914–1926 |
Rev. Charles Fox Burney |
1927–1935 |
Income Tax & Land Tax Office |
1937–1939 |
Unemployment Assistance Board |
1952–1999 |
Oxford & County Secretarial School/College |
2000–2009 |
University of Oxford Humanities
Division |
2009–c.2016 |
Theology Faculty |
2017–2025 |
Part of Oxford Internet Institute |
2025–2026 |
Vacant |
* See Brian R. Law, Building Oxford’s Heritage. Symm and Company from 1815 (Symm & Company, 1998) for more information on Daniel Evans and Joshua Robinson Symm.