Oxford History: The High

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The former inn on this site (named The Mitre from 1475)

In about 1310 Philip Worminghall turned several houses in the High Street and tenements in Turl Street into an inn with front and back entrances (later rebuilt and renamed the Mitre): the thirteenth-century cellars of those houses still survive. He died in 1314, and the inn was inherited by his widow Eleanor Worminghall. She married William of Bicester, and it then became known as the Bicester Inn.

In 1360 the tenant was John Hertwell.

It was only in 1475 when the inn came into the ownership of Lincoln College that it was renamed The Mitre (after the mitre of the Bishop of Lincoln that is depicted on the college's coat of arms).

In 1545–1556 another man who served as Mayor of Oxford, William Tylcock, took over the Mitre.

The present building (from c.1630)

The present Mitre building (apart from the older cellars) dates from around 1630. It is a Grade II* listed building (List Reference No. 1369357). 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.

It was an important coaching inn, and as early as 1671 there were coaches running between London and the Mitre on three days a week. The engraving of the Mitre Inn by J. Fisher shown below dates from c.1825 and shows the Defiance coach, which ran between Oxford and London via Henley, straddling the entrance to the Market and the coach office at No. 17:

The Mitre’s central position meant that it was a good picking up and setting down place for long-distance coaches. Anthony Wood writes of a coach service in 1671 that ran from the Mitre to the Greyhound in Holborn, London at 6 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, returning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. By the end of the eighteenth century, there was a daily service: the Universal Business Directory for 1794/5 announces:

From the Mitre Inn, High-street:- Messrs. Slater and Gray’s heavy-coach sets out every morning, at seven o’clock, through Henley, to the Bell Savage, Ludgate-hill, London, Sunday excepted; inside fare 14s., outside 8s. W. W. Sydenham, proprietor, at Oxford.

The 1772 Survey of Oxford shows the three parts of the Mitre occupied by Mr Haynes, Mrs Underwood, and Mr Bletsoe, with frontages measuring 9yds 1ft 4in, 8yd 1ft 9in, and 5yd respectively.

Paradoxically, the Mitre’s coach business seems to have increased after the coming of the railways, presumably because of the closure of the Angel Hotel. So while Pigot’s 1823 directory mentions only two services from the Mitre (to Bristol and Bath), Gardner’s directory for Oxfordshire in 1852 lists the following six:

• Birmingham: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, at quarter past 11; through Shipston and Stratford, for 7 o’clock, trains to Liverpool, Manchester &c.
• Cheltenham, day, 3, through Witney, Burford, and Northleach
• Chipping Norton, day at 1, afternoon half past 5
• London, Prince of Wales, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning at 11; through Tetsworth, Wycombe, and Uxbridge
• Witney & Burford Magnet, Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, afternoon, half past 5
• Worcester, through Moreton, Bourton, and Evesham, day at 1.

The Mitre was not as grand as the Angel, and probably catered more for people who arrived by public coach than those who came with their own horses. Nevertheless Anthony Wood records that when Prince Maurice of Nassau came to see the library and colleges “he layd at the Miter”. It was also popular with local residents, both town and gown, and in February 1691 Wood records how John Forster, Fellow of All Souls College, “died at the Miter Inn late at night, after immoderate drinking”.

For a chronological table of Owners and Tenants of the Mitre from 1230 to 1917, see R. A. H. Spiers, Round About “The Mitre” at Oxford (second edn, 1929), pp. 18–19.

The following auction notice in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 13 April 1803 (when Mr Palmer, the proprietor, stated that he was about to retire from the business) gives a good description of the inn, which had recently been “new fronted”:

The Premisses comprise excellent Cellaring, the Beer Cellars being sufficiently large to contain near 12,000 Gallons, a spacious Coffee Room and a large Parlour in Front, two back Parlours, large Kitchen, Bar, Pantry, and Scullery on the Ground Floor, two capital Dining Rooms in Front, and ten very good Bed Chambers on the second Floor, with fifteen Attic Chambers and Closets.–The Out-Houses consist of a large Brew-House, lately fitted up at a considerable Expense on the most improved Plan, Granaries, Stabling for upwards of forty Horses, with excellent Lofts over the same, Shed, &c. spacious Yard, with a Back Gate for carriages, leading into Lincoln Lane [Turl Street], Pump, and every other Conveniency to render the Whole complete.

Palmer evidently did not retire as early as he had hoped, however, as eight years later on 16 March 1811 Palmer put it up for sale by private contract. He stated that the inn had recently been new fronted. Then early in 1815 Palmer attempted to retire again (on account of ill health early), and on 4 March that year another auction advertisement appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal, stating that the Mitre was famous for its home-brewed beer and ale.

On 23 December 1815 Thomas Peake announced that he had taken over the Mitre, having left the Blue Boar, which had shut up as an inn.

At the time of the 1841 census Margaret Peake was the only family member at home at the Mitre. Thomas Peake died at the age of 75 just weeks after the census, and on 11 June 1841 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised an auction of the inn, which was described as follows:

The house consists of 36 convenient and airy bed rooms, and is capable of making up about 50 beds; 7 sitting rooms; coffee, traveller's, and market rooms; bar, bar-parlour, a spacious and well fitted kitchen, and well arranged pantry, scullery, laundry, water closets, large coal cellar, and other offices. The cellars are vaulted, roomy, and dry, and capable of carrying on, independent of and in addition to the business of the Inn, a considerable trade in the wine and spirit business. The stabling is well arranged and sufficient for accommodating 50 horses, with lock-up coach house, and spacious sheds; together with the Tap, which comprises a cellar, tap room, sitting room, and 3 bed rooms. The Premises are substantial and in good repair, the interior ornamently papered and well arranged, with handsome and convenient staircase and vestibule, and are altogether well worth the attention of any person desirous of a respectable and lucrative occupation.

The Mitre was bought by Arthur Venables, who inserted his first newspaper advertisement on 16 October 1841. The 1851 census shows Venables, a widower of 59, living at the Mitre with his unmarried son William. Only nine guests were in residence (two solicitors, a linen manufacturer, a draper, and a young man of 22 of no occupation). Looking after these nine guests was a staff of 17: a barmaid, a housemaid, a china maid, three chambermaids, three waiters, a “boots & ostler”, an ostler, three grooms, and two general servants.

By the time of the 1861 census the hotel keeper was Arthur's son James G.  Venables (35), and he is listed with his wife Sarah Jane and six “visitors”, plus two assistants (a book keeper and barmaid) and eleven servants (three waiters, a porter, a sitting-room maid, two chambermaids, a housemaid, a kitchen maid, a scullery maid, and a boots). In 1871 Mrs Sarah Jane Venables, now a widow, was the hotel keeper, assisted by thirteen servants. There were then eight guests in residence.

The 1881 census shows the wine merchant Charles Foster junior (73) at the Mitre with his second wife Mary (49) and their two servants. (His wife, formerly Mary Prickett, had been governess to the Liddell children until her marriage in 1871: Lewis Carroll's Red Queen is understood to have been modelled on her .) Foster died at the Mitre on 25 December 1888 and his widow Mary continued to run the hotel.

In the 1891 census two visitors are listed under No. 17, plus sixteen servants (three porters, three waiters, three housemaids, two still room maids, the hotel manageress, bookkeeper, housekeeper, linen maid, chamber maid, scullery maid, and a page). Listed separately under No. 18 are the hotel proprietor Mrs Mary Foster (59) and members of her family: her brother-in-law Samuel Patey Spiers, her sister Elizabeth Spiers, her niece and nephews by marriage Beatrice, Frank, and Charles Foster and Richard and Hubert Spiers, plus their parlourmaid and housemaid.

At the time of the 1901 census Mrs Foster had put a manageress in at the hotel, namely Kate Thornton (43), who lived here with 22 members of staff: a housekeeper, two still-room maids, a linen keeper, four housemaids, a vegetable maid, a kitchen maid, a chambermaid, a kitchen porter, four waiters, a plateman, two porters, and a bookkeeper and office assistant.

As can be seen from the Frith & Co postcard of 1907 below, in the early part of the twentieth century the Mitre’s rooms extended westwards across the covered market’s frontage above Slatter & Rose.

The 1911 census shows the widow Mrs Mary Foster (80) as the hotel keeper, and Miss Ada Marion Slater (48) the hotel manageress. Also living at the hotel were 21 other members of staff: the housekeeper, two bookkeepers, a linen keeper, a chambermaid, four housemaids, two stillroom maids, two kitchenmaids, a plateman, three porters, and three waiters. There were nine guests staying on census night. Mitre. Mary Foster died at 1 Turl Street on 28 November 1920.

The 1921 census shows sixteen servants and 43 visitors in residence on census night

In 1926, the Mitre ceased to function as a coaching inn and became simply a hotel. The stables in Turl Street behind were converted into the Turl Bar.

In 1967 the ground floor of the hotel was taken over by the Berni Inn chain and turned into a restaurant; and in 1969 the Mitre ceased to be a hotel altogether when Lincoln College took all its other rooms over to provide accommodation for 50 students. Whitbread took over the Berni chain from Grand Metropolitan in 1990, and the ground floor of the former hotel then became a Beefeater Restaurant. It then became the Mitre restaurant & bar.

In 2020/21 the whole of the Mitre building was closed for an extensive refurbishment, and the ground floor reopened as a Gusto Italian restaurant in December 2022.

Above: Mr Bouncer and Mr Verdant Green in the Mitre's coffee room. This is an illustration
from The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green, published in 1853.
The shops on the south side of the High that can be seen through the window
are accurately named: on the left is Parsons & Foster, hatters, mercers, & tailors;
Foster & Co, drapers & mercers, and James Russell's music shop (123, 124, & 125).

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No. 18 High Street (the shop on the east that later became part of the Mitre)

No. 18 was originally the number given to the shop on the corner of Turl Street that is now part of the Mitre. It was a grocer's shop from the early eighteenth century to the late 1860s, and had a separate private entrance in Turl Street. In the engraving above, made in 1834, the shop windows are protected from the sun by coverings.

It has an eighteenth-century front on an older building, and is jointly listed with the Mitre and the former coaching office to the west, all under the number 17.

At the time of the 1841 census the grocer Richard William Richardson was living here over his shop with four others and a servant. He was still here in 1851 with his wife Eliza Ann, their first six children, and four servants. Following his wife's death in 1854 and his own death in 1855, his executors announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 13 October 1855 that they would continue his business for the benefit of his eight orphan children.

The following advertisement appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 26 September 1868:

Extensive & valuable BUSINESS PREMISES,
Adjoining the Mitre Hotel, High Street, Oxford,
WITH POSSESSION,
TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION,
By Mr. R. PIKE,

At the Mitre Hotel, Oxford, on Tuesday, October 6, 1868, at Three for Four o’clock (by direction of the Trustee acting under the Will of the late Mr. Richardson), under conditions then to be produced.
All those Extensive BUSINESS PREMISES, situate No. 18 High-street, and 1, Turl-street, Oxford, comprising on the ground floor double-fronted shop (with private entrance from Turl-street), back parlour, and kitchen, scullery, and sugar warehouse; on the first floor—drawing room, back bed room, and w.c.; on the second floor—sitting room, 2 bed rooms, and 2 dressing rooms; on the third floor—3 bed rooms and 2 attics; with 3 capital arched cellars in the basement under house and shop, and large vault or arched cellar, extending under the High street 20 feet, and in breadth 19 feet, including the walls thereof.

The House and Premises are held by Lease under the Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College, for a term of 40 years, from 10th October, 1836, at a reserved rent of £10 and half-pound of pepper, and land tax £3 8 s. 4d. per annum.

The arched vault or cellar under the High-street is held by Lease under the City of Oxford, for a term of 40 years, from Michaelmas, 1853, at a reserved rent of 7s.

The Business of Tea-dealer and Grocer has been carried on upon these premises for upwards of 150 years. The situation may be fairly considered the very best in Oxford for that or any other Business.

In 1883 part of the premises of Thomas Sheard (the grocer at No. 21) in a court adjoining All Saints’ Church behind No. 19 was separated off and converted into a tutor’s residence for Brasenose College. It was allocated the number 18, which was going spare, but is now simply known as Brasenose House.