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This five-storey building on the corner of Cornmarket and Broad Street is called William Baker House and is in St Michael-at-the-Northgate parish. It was built in 1915 and this date can be seen at the top of the pillar to the left of the entrance. (The Oxfordshire Buildings Record states that the date of 1795 at the top of the next pillar to the left is meant to be the date of the founding of William Baker's firm but is incorrect.)

When the cabinet maker William Baker died in 1902, his business was taken over by Elliston & Cavell, who in 1915 commissioned this new building, keeping the old name.

It was designed by Messrs N. W. & G. A. Harrison of Turl Street, in consultation with Payne Wyatt of London, and the builders were Messrs Wooldridge & Simpson of Oxford.

• Architect's sketch of the building (published in the Oxford Journal Illustrated of 19 May 1915)

The firm of William Baker Ltd did not have far to move to these new premises, as from 1859 to 1915 William Baker & Co., “cabinet makers, upholsterers, carpet factors, house decorators and complete furnishers”, had been situated at 1 Broad Street, immediately to the east of this corner.

• See the page on 1–3 Broad Street for more information about the early days of the business

The Oxford Chronicle of 9 October 1914 reported as follows:

The erection of important business premises has been commenced at the corner of Broad Street and Cornmarket Street which upon completion will provide extensive show rooms, etc., for Messrs. William Baker & Co., of Broad Street. Accommodation has also been arranged for Messrs Martyr’s hairdressing establishment. The buildings will take a curved line uniting the street improvement scheme, and will be in Ancaster stone with Stonesfield slating to the fronts. The elevation will be divided into six bays with coupled columns to the height of the first and second floors, above polished Ancaster stone piers on the ground floor; and enriched cornice occurs over the third-floor windows, above which the roof will spring.

Elliston & Cavell’s was taken over by Debenham’s in the 1960s, and the former William Baker shop served as their furniture and television department. They closed the shop down in 1987.

From 1987 to 2025 it was the home of two bookshops: first Dillon’s (opened by the Chancellor of the University, Roy Jenkins), and then Waterstone’s.

It was reported in 2025 that the premises would become a Harry Potter establishment of Warner Bros (now owned by Netflix), but it never happened, and Mountain Warehouse moved in on 4 July 2026.

As the building has no number, it is still known as William Baker House, Broad Street.

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The former building on the site of William Baker House

The photograph below (Historic England CC72/02292) shows the flat-roofed two-storey building that was on the site of William Baker House in 1914, just prior to its demolition:

In 1914 it was occupied by the following three businesses, as shown in the above photograph:

• On the corner was the hairdresser & perfumer Alfred Martyr, whose address was 32 Cornmarket Street
• Just to the left (occupying a shop on the ground floor and the offices upstairs, with a Broad Street address) were the auctioneers, valuers, & estate agents Robert Buckell, Son & Ballard. The auctioneer Robert Buckell had been on the premises since 1894 and went into partnership with another auctioneer, Alfred Henry Ballard, in 1911. (The business moved to King Edward Street when their premises were demolished in 1915.)
• To the left again is the shop of S. Lewene.

Then to the east again was the Oxford Drug Company and the Arcade, the first of the shops in Broad Street that fourteen years later in 1928 would be replaced by Boswell House.

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William Baker, photographed by Hills & Saunders in
the early 1870s. Photograph supplied by Paul Plumb


Above: Five-piece inlaid mahogany bookcase made by the
William Baker firm with a plaque at the top showing that it
was presented in July 1920 (together with the clock on top)
to William Brown on his retirement from the Penrith &
District Railway. The plaque below from inside the top left
door shows that this bookcase was made by the William
Baker & Co. Ltd. These two photographs were provided by
William Brown's great-grandson John Hana

William Baker (1833–1901)

The eponymous William Baker did not live to see William Baker House.

 

He was born in Bicester in c.1833, On 10 July 1855 at Summertown he married Eliza Ruth Williams (born in Oxford in 1831), daughter of the prosperous tailor Adin Williams.

 

In 1859 he opened his shop at 1 Broad Street in Oxford. At the time of the 1861 census he and his wife were living at the Terrace in Park Town and he was described as a cabinet maker employing 22 men, 8 boys, and 24 women.

 

In 1871 William Baker and his wife were living at 4 Broad Street with their adopted daughter Constance Emily Jefferies (14), the orphaned daughter of Walter Loud Jeffries and his wife Emily Hales Parr.

 

Their son William Henry Baker was born at Long Hanborough on 6 August 1872, and their daughter Hilda Millicent Baker in Oxford in 1874.

 

In 1874 William Baker became the first leaseholder of 4 Canterbury Road and the 1881 census shows him living there with his wife and their children William (8) and Hilda (6), plus their adopted daughter Constance, who was employed as a housemaid. He now described himself as an upholsterer employing 31 men, seven boys, and four women.

 

In 1890 William Baker became the first leaseholder of a different north Oxford house, 16 Rawlinson Road, and the 1891 census shows him there, aged 48 and described as a cabinet maker & upholsterer, with his two children, plus a cook and a housemaid. His wife was having treatment on census night at a hydropathic establishment in Matlock, Derbyshire.

 

Their son William Henry Baker had attended Magdalen College School, and on 15 October 1892 at the age of 20 he was matriculated at the University of Oxford by St John's College.

 

Eliza Ruth Baker died at Hanborough at the age of 70 in March 1901 and was buried in unconsecrated ground in Bicester with the service of the Church of England.

 

The 1901 census shows William Baker living at Park View in Bicester with his son William Henry Baker (28), who was now a solicitor, and his daughter Hilda (26), plus a sick nurse, a cook, and a housemaid.

 

William Baker, described as being a cabinet maker of 1 Broad Street, Oxford and of Hanborough, died at Hanborough just three months after his wife on 23 June 1901 at the age of 68 and was buried at Bicester. His effects came to £15,345 16s. 8d.

On 23 October 1902 at St Michael-at-the-Northgate Church, Oxford William Baker's daughter Hilda Millicent Baker (27) married the widower Wallace Dewe (34), a gentleman of 13 Waylen Street, Reading.

His only son William Henry Baker did not take over the family business at 1 Broad Street, but sold it to Elliston & Cavell. In 1904 he married his Irish-born wife Annie, and the 1911 census shows them living off private means at Firdale, The Bourne, Farnham, Surrey. He died at Farnham on 6 February 1928 at the age of 55: see his grave there.