14 Holywell Street dates from the seventeenth century, but was remodelled in the eighteenth century. Originally it only had two floors. It is owned by Merton College.
It is a Grade II Listed Building (1369395), with the following description:
No 14 SP 5106 NE 6/213 12.1.54. II GV 2. House. RCHM 209.
C17, remodelled in C18. Originally a two-storeyed timber- framed house but it now has a built-out attic floor with a hipped Welsh slate roof in what were originally two gables. There are brick stacks. On the West is a coachway and the ground floor has a modern three-light sash window. In the first floor is one sash window in a moulded frame with a plain lintel; on the West of this is a modern casement window over the coachway. The attic floor has two three-light modern casement windows. At the back on North is a brick extension with a modern brown tiled hipped roof.
In the nineteenth century the opening to the left led to livery stables and to the six houses in Park Passage behind Nos. 15 and 16, and the part of the house above the entrance to this passage facing Holywell Street was let separately and numbered 14A (or 14½).
From the 1830s until his death at the age of 47 in July 1852 this house was occupied by the stable keeper Charles Davis, who had the adjacent livery stables for sixteen horses on the left.
Then another stable keeper, Charles Symonds, who had his main livery stables at 30 Holywell Street, occupied the house and stables here, but he did not remain long, and an auction of the premises was advertised in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 24 January 1857:
Lot 2. — A 10-Roomed DWELLING HOUSE, with detached Stabling for 16 horses, Coach-houses, Harness Room, Offices, &c., in the occupation of Mr. Charles Symonds, being No. 14, Holywell-street, held by lease under Merton College, Oxford, for a term of 40 years, from April 5, 1848. Quit Rent 6s. 8d. and two pecks of malt; Land Tax, £1 7s. 6d.; present rental, £60.
Miss Susannah Hutt appears to have bought the lease of No. 14, as she was running a small school here by the time of the 1861 census. She died suddenly at 14 Holywell Street at the age of 58 on 5 December 1882.
In the 1930s Nos. 14 and 14A were combined as one house and Park Passage disappeared:
- Oxford (Holywell No. 3) Housing Confirmation Order 1936,
relating to “Holywell Street Park Passage”
From 1964 this house was occupied by Fellows of Merton College.
It was Holywell Bed & Breakfast until 2020, and is now a private house again.
14 Holywell Street in the censuses
1841
The 1841 census for Holywell does not give house numbers, but it is possible to deduce where people listed that year lived by examining directory entries between 1839 and 1842 and later censuses
No. 14
Charles Davis (20), a stable keeper, lived here with Esther (30) and Frances (9), and Frances Hall (35). They had one female servant.No. 14A
Richard Preston, a tailor, lived here with Elizabeth (40) and Richard (13).
1851
No. 14
Charles Davis (46), a stable keeper employing 3 men, still lived here with his wife Esther (43). They had two lodgers: a private tutor and an undergraduate.No. 14A
George Durham (36), a coachman, lived here with his wife Sophia (35) and their children William (8) and Henry (5).
1861
No. 14
Susannah Hutt (34), a schoolmistress, lived here with two of her pupils (aged 7 and 5), a clergyman boarder, and one servant.No. 14A
Betsey Hands (77) lived here with her granddaughter Eleanor Kirby (15), who was an apprentice dressmaker.
1871
No. 14
Susannah Hutt (45), a schoolmistress, still lived here. She had a seven-year-old boarder and one servant.No. 14A
Richard W. Drury (63), a widower who was a tailor, lived here with his son George (23): both were tailors.
1881
No 14
Susannah Hutt (57), a governess, lived here with one domestic servant.No. 14½
Richard W. Drury (72) sill lived here with his son George, and both were still tailors.
1891
No 14
Kate Solloway (63), a widowed lodging-house keeper, lived here alone.No. 14a
Isaac Richards (75) lived here with his wife Charlotte (74), who was a tailoress.
1901
No 14
Susan Baker (50), a widowed confectioner, lived here with her children Herbert (21), who was a butcher; Tom (19), who was an assistant school teacher; Mary (17), who was a baker’s shop assistant; Arthur (15), Frank (14), Kate (12), and Lucy (8). Her widowed sister Eliza Hartwell (56), who had her own means, also lived in the household.No. 14½
Arthur Miller (37), a photographer, lived here with his wife Agnes (33).
1911
Ernest Attwood (37), an ironmonger, lived at No. 14 with his wife Margaret (35) and their daughter Kathleen (3). They had one servant.
1921
Ernest William Attwood (46), now a tailor and employer at 3 Cornmarket, was still living here with his wife Margaret (44) and their three daughters, plus a servant.
1939 Register
The master motor engineer Leonard George Gray lived at No. 14 with his wife Constance and their two children, plus three lodgers.
Occupants of 14 Holywell Street listed in directories etc. |
|||
| Yard behind | Upstairs rooms |
No. 14 |
|
1758 |
Not known |
Mr Bowden |
|
1772 |
Mrs Bloxham |
Mr Loyd |
|
1841–1851 |
Livery Stables |
Richard Preston, tailor George Durham, Coachman |
? (JOJ of 18 Nov 1854 names Mrs Walker) |
1861 |
Livery Stables of
|
Betsey Hands |
Miss Susannah Hutt |
1866 |
Samuel Field named in 1867 directory probably lived here |
||
1871–1881 |
? |
Richard W. Drury |
|
1884–1887 |
Probably the yard of Thomas Fenemore, the ironmonger at No. 14A and later at No. 15 |
Thomas Fenemore, |
George Walker |
1889–1899 |
Frederick Baker (to 1899) Mrs Susan Baker (by 1901) |
||
1901 |
Arthur Miller |
||
1905 |
Godsell & Co. |
Gustav Mann, M.D. Edin, B.Sc. Oxon |
|
1911–1928 |
E. W. Attwood (also at 14A & 15) |
||
1930 |
No listing |
||
1933 |
Frederick Alcock |
||
1935–1936 |
Mrs Heaton |
||
1938–1960 |
Leonard George Gray (motor engineer) |
||
1962 |
Clark Cunningham, B.Litt. |
||
1964–1970 |
Rodney Needham, Ph.D. |
||
1971–1974 |
Philip John Waller |
||
1974–1976 |
Jack Beatson |
||
c.1990s–2020 |
Holywell Bed & Breakfast |
||
2020–present |
Private house |
||