130: Love Coffee Co
No. 130 has one of the oldest fronts in the High, dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. It is a Grade II listed building (List Entry No. 1369390), owned by Oxford City Council. The building was condemned in 1929 when the Carter fish shop, which had been there for over a hundred years, closed down, but its front was preserved and only the back was rebuilt.
In 1637 Kemp Hall was built in its back garden. The extra floor in behind was also added in the seventeenth century and has since been altered.
. 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.
The image below of “old houses in the High Street” (drawn in 1834 by William Delamotte and engraved by Orlando Jewitt) shows No. 130 on the right looking much as it does today. It was then Carter’s fish shop, which had slatted counters open to the street. The passage on the left-hand side of the building which led to Kemp Hall behind was then known as Carter’s Passage.
No. 130 was owned from about 1600 by William Boswell, a mercer who was appointed Mayor of Oxford in 1622 and an Alderman in 1627. In 1637 Boswell built a fine new house for himself (Kemp Hall) in the long narrow back garden of No. 130, but died the next year, leaving both shop and house to his son, Dr William Boswell, DCL, who paid tax on eight windows here in 1665. When Dr Boswell died unmarried in 1678, it passed to his nephews William and Thomas Boswell, and they let it out as a milliner's shop.
On 5 February 1689 William Boswell sold the present No. 130 High Street to Thomas Reeve, a tobacco pipe-maker:
A messuage in All Saints, formerly in the occupation of Richard Cratto, milliner, afterwards of George Wickham, milliner [buried at All Saints Church on 17 August 1688], being a shop next to the street &c., together with the setting and pitching of the butchers' stalls in the street before the messuage with the profits thereof as belong to the messuage, with a right of way past two messuages behind (formerly part of the same tenement) now or late in the occupation of Edward Prince and Richard Pierce.
In 1697 Thomas Reeve left No. 130 to the City of Oxford for the benefit of poor widows, and on 1 July 1927 its freehold was acquired by Oxford City Council from the Trustees of the Municipal Charities of the City of Oxford. It is still in the ownership of the city council.
In 1772 a survey of every house in the city was taken in consequence of the Mileways Act of 1771. No. 130 was then in the occupation of a Mr Cosier, and its frontage measured 8 yards 2 feet 10 inches.
The Carter family: fish shop and brush-maker (1808 to 1929)
On 21 July 1808 the brush-maker William Ball announced that he had declined his business in favour of Mr William Carter of the High Street, and by 1811 Carter was described as both a fishmonger and brush-maker. He and his wife Kitty had four children baptised at All Saints Church: George (1799), John (1801), Ann (1803), and Thomas (1804).
Their eldest child George died at the age of 20 in March 1819, and William Carter himself died on 22 March 1821 at the age of 57 after a lingering disease. On 28 April 1821 his widow Kitty (or Kate) Carter announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal that with the help of her son (probably John, aged 20), she would be carrying on both sides of her husband's business, adding that there would be a regular supply of fish daily from London and Southampton, and that she would also supply country shopkeepers with brushes of the best quality and on the lowest terms.
On 9 December 1826 Mrs Carter announced in the paper that because of her poor state of health (she died just over a fortnight later at the age of 64), she had declined the business of a fishmonger & brush-maker in favour of her sons John Carter and Thomas Carter (who were admitted free in September 1822 and June 1826 respectively). In Pigot's Directory for 1830 both John & Thomas Carter were listed as fishmongers and brush manufacturers in the High Street.
In Robson's Directory for 1839 John Carter is listed without his brother as the fishmonger at 130 High Street, and he appears to have dropped the brush-making side of the business. At the time of the 1841 census he and his wife Lydia lived over the shop with their sons John junior and Charles and their daughters Lydia, Catherine, and Sarah. John & Lydia were still there in 1851 with John, who was now working as a fishmonger with his father, and Charles, who was a college servant, and their daughters, Lydia, Lucy, and Emily. The premises still belonged to Reeves’ Charity, and was then let out at a rack rental of £60.
John Carter died in 1855, and the 1861 census shows his widow Mrs Lydia Carter (59) and her son Charles Carter (31), both described as fishmongers, living here with her daughters Lydia (36) Lucy (26), and Emily (13), and her granddaughter Florence Carter. The 1871 and 1881 censuses show Lydia Carter still here with her two unmarried daughters Lydia Lucy Carter and Emily Maria Carter, who from 1872 ran the shop themselves.
Mrs Carter's daughter Lydia Lucy Carter died at the age of 59 in 1883, and she herself died at 130 High Street at the age of 88 in 1891.
The photograph below (Historic England CC72/01890) shows this shop in 1892:
Another photograph showing the shop with its shutters down is here.
In 1898 Messrs Carter's fish shop here was one of the few businesses in the city to have a telephone number: Oxford 47.
The 1891 census shows the fishmonger Miss Emily Maria Carter (43) living over the shop with her niece Lucy Stew (23) plus their servant. Emily Maria Carter was still here in 1901.
At the time of the 1911 census Richard Goldney (64), described as a fishmonger's manager, lived in the seven rooms over No. 130 with his wife and two children.
The 1921 census shows Walter Sydney Cole (32), describes as a fishmonger's manager for fish merchants and poulterers F. H. Phillips & Co, living in five rooms over this shop with his wife Mabel.
The Carter business, which latterly also sold game, closed down in 1929, and Miss Emily Maria Carter died on 2 February 1935 at the age of 87 at 67 Abingdon Road.
For many years the passageway that ran under the east side of the shop (with Kemp Hall) was named Carter's Yard after this family.
After 1930
When the Carter's fish shop closed down some rebuilding was done at the back, and then the tobacconist from next door moved in. The new part was damaged by fire within a few months.
It remained a tobacconist's shop until 1992, and a retail shop until the Westgate Centre opened in 2017. It is now a coffee shop.
Occupiers of 130 High Street |
|
c.mid-17th century |
Richard Cratto, Milliner |
To 1688 |
George Wickham, Milliner |
From 1689 |
Thomas Reeve, Tobacco pipe-maker |
1772 |
Mr Cosier |
1808–1929 | William Carter,
Fishmonger & brushmaker (died 1821) and then his wife Kate (died 1826) |
1930–1968 |
Evans & Evans, Tobacconist Fribourg & Treyer, Cigar importers & cigarette manufacturers Various businesses upstairs, including Studio Edmark from 1956 |
1970–1976+ |
North of England Building Society/Central Business Agency & Central Estates Fribourg & Treyer, Cigar importers and tobacconists Upstairs: Studio Edmark, Photographers and dental surgery |
1992 |
Ward's Tobacconists |
By 1996–2003 |
Oxford Campus Stores |
2003–2017 |
White Stuff [moved to Westgate Centre] |
2017–2018 |
Vacant |
2019–2022 |
Souvenir shop Upstairs in 2021 (accessed from Kemp Hall Passage):: |
2022– |
Love Coffee Co |
