Market Street (off east side of Cornmarket)
Market Street runs to Turl Street from between the shop at 12 Cornmarket Street and the large block of Jesus College's Cheng Yu Tung Building (formerly Northgate House). Its current name comes from the Covered Market, which opened in 1774. It's back entrance is visible on the far right of the above photograph.
The street originally had a chain here at the west end, and from 1330 to 1340 it was known as Le Cheyne Lane; in 1502 as Cheney Lane; and in 1513 as Cheyne Lane.
Salter states that in the seventeenth century it was known as Jennings Lane, after Richard Jennings, the whitebaker who then occupied the present Nos. 3–6 Market Street.
By 1762 it was known as Jesus College Lane after the college that lines its north east side, and this name was still used as an alternative to Market Lane as late as 1837. (This can be confusing, as Ship Street, lined by the north part of the college, was also known as Jesus Lane.)
On 3 January 1846 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised the sale of "excellent building materials, comprising the whole of five houses, to be taken down to widen Market-street”.
There were four pubs in Market Street in the nineteenth century: the Seven Stars, the Crown & Thistle, the Abingdon Arms, and the Roebuck Vaults.
Kelly;s Directory for 1924 lists the following shops on the north side of Market Street, running westwards towards Cornmarket:
- 10: Crown & Thistle P.H. Allen Reginald Payne
- 11 & 12: Weeks & Co., confectioners
- 13 & 15: Strange Herbert William, hair dresser
- 14: Rowles Arthur, nurseryman & seedsman
- 16: Bateman M., ladies tailor
- 17: Streaks Arnold Cuthbert, dining rooms
- 18: Eastmans Limited, butchers