Oxford Ghost Signs: Cantay House, 36–39 Park End Street
The huge building above dating from 1901 has the word CANTAY in the gable on the left and DEPOSITORIES in the gable on the right. The mosaic below with the word OFFICE has also survived at the customer entrance at the right-hand corner:
Archer, Cowley & Co Office was also etched on a window (right) on the western side facing Park End Place. This survived until c.2014, when the glass was broken. This photograph was taken by Liz Woolley in June 2009 and is reproduced with her permission.
The architects of this building were Tollit & Lee (who also designed the former Morris Garages in Longwall Street) and was built in 1901 for Archer, Cowley & Co as a furniture warehouse called Cantay Depositories.
This invoice from the company dated 1905 for a household removal from Museum Road to Park Town shows this building at the top and a steam engine with three storage wagons attached parked outside (click on image to enlarge).
The firm was sold to the Cantay Group in 1961, but continued to trade as Archer, Cowley & Co into the 1980s.
Cantay House
The furniture removers Archer & Co were based at 36 & 37 Pembroke Street in St Aldate's, Oxford from 1876 to c.1968, but from 1901 their warehouses were here in Park End Street.
Advertisement in Kelly’s Directory for 1930
On 12 October 1901 Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported that two commodious shops with warehouses over for Messrs James Archer & Co., furniture removers, were in course of erection. This is the present Cantay House at 36, 37, 38, and 39 Park End Street, Oxford.
- Photographs: building work; constructing the upper floor; and examining the plans
Situated conveniently near the railway station, the building had 4,000 square feet of storage space and fireproof doors, and its floors and staircases were made of reinforced concrete. It is steel-framed, with iron columns cast by William Lucy's Eagle Ironworks in Jericho.
Extensive additions were made to the building in 1909 (see Oxford Chronicle of 8 October 1909)
In 1919 the firm became Archer, Cowley & Co., and the following year they built an extension behind their Park End Street premises in conjunction with the Trussed Concrete Steel Company of London: this was Oxford's first reinforced concrete building, and the architect was Gilbert T. Gardner): see Oxford Journal Illustrated of 26 May 1920.
Archer, Cowley & Co. remained at these premises in Park End Street until the 1980s.
Cantay House was converted into a conference centre and office block in 2007. W. E. Black bought it in 2011 and Hooper Stonemasons restored the building.
At the beginning of 2024 the building was occupied by the Kiss Bar and the ATK nightclub (both now closed because of the redevelopment), the Stratum Clinic, part of Cherwell College, and Oxford Audio Consultants.
There is a current planning application to revitalize Cantay House (25/00193/FUL). The “Statement of Significance and Heritage Impact assessment” under the Documents tab gives more information about this building, and the Planning Statement lists the numerous planning applications relating to the different businesses that have occupied the premises between 1972 and 2016.
Who were Archer and Cowley?
(1) James Archer
The Archer family business boasted in advertisements in 1876 that it had operating for 23 years, but originally it was a brewery. The earliest advertisement in Jackson's Oxford Journal for a removal firm appears to be this one on 23 April 1870, when Archer & Co had its depository in New Road:
James Archer, the son of John Archer and his wife Frances (Fanny), was baptised at St Michael-at-the-Northgate Church on 21 December 1836. His father was a publican at the time of his birth, and the 1841 census shows that his pub was in Market Street (probably the Seven Stars at No. 14). By the time of the 1851 census, however, James's father was a brewer in St Aldate's Street (presumably having taken over the brewery of John Archer senior, who was described as “many years a respectable brewer of St Aldate's” when he died on 8 August 1845 at the age of 79).
The 1861 census shows James Archer (25), described as a clerk, living in Isis House.
By 1869 James Archer was the publican at the Anchor Hotel in New Road, and described himself as a carrier there for the first in the 1871 census. He was still there when on 31 March 1874 he married Fanny Porter, a bootmaker's daughter of 35 Hythe Bridge Street, at St Peter-le-Bailey Church, and in the marriage register he was described as a carrier of New Road rather than a publican.
This advertisement published in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 12 September 1874 shows that the firm had expanded and now had depositories in both New Road and Castle Street:
On 29 April 1876 Jackson's Oxford Journal advertised a forthcoming sale of “household furniture, comprising carpets, mahogany and other tables, chairs, coaches, pier glasses, the fittings of eight bed rooms, kitchen requisites, and other effects ... by order of Mr. James Archer, who is removing to his new Pantechnicon [warehouse for storing goods] in Pembroke-street”. On 1 May 1876 Archer & Co moved to 36 & 37 Pembroke Street in St Aldate's (now a listed building), and the following advertisement for their “royal pantechnicon” appeared regularly in Jackson's Oxford Journal from 6 May 1876 to 30 November 1878:
The 1881 census shows James Archer (43), with his occupation described as “Furniture Repository”, living at 37 Pembroke Street with his wife Fanny (41).
By 1891, although still described as a carrier and employer, he had moved with his wife to Stanton St John.
In 1882 James Archer bought a strip of land measuring just under two acres from the Great Western Railway, and laid out sixty plots on the west side of a new street called Archer Street, but ten years later that name was lost and it was just a continuation of Marlborough Road to the south.
Archer had 26 horses and a 180-acre farm at Dean's Ham at Grandpont where they grazed. This advertisement on 31 March 1894 shows that Archer & Co were then the sole carriers by appointment to Radley College and Abingdon, with a daily service:
When the old Town Hall was demolished in 1896, it was Archer & Co that carted away the rubble and delivered the building materials for the new Town Hall.
By 1908 James & Fanny Archer were living at 320 Banbury Road. Fanny died there at the age of 69 that year, and her funeral was at St Thomas's Church on 22 April 1908. The 1911 census shows James living alone at that address with a housekeeper, and he still simply described himself as a carrier. He had no children, and handed the business over to his nephew William George Reed Archer when he retired in 1919.
- Photograph of W. G. Archer, head of Archer, Cowley & Co Ltd from 1955 to 1968
James Archer died at 320 Banbury Road on 12 October 1922 and his funeral was at St Thomas's Church. His effects came to £59,530 5s. 4d.
(2) Mark James Cowley
Mark James Cowley was born in Oxford on 12 June 1856, the son of Thomas & Ann Cowley. At the time of the 1871 census when he as aged 15 he was working as a railway clerk and living in Walton Street wit his family.
He joined James Archer in 1876, apparently as a clerk, and in 1881 he was living with his mother at 3 Leckford Road.
On 24 April 1883 he married Sarah Mary Ann Maltby, the daughter of the bookbinder Alfred Maltby, at Ss Philip & James's Church, and their only child Winifred Rose Cowley was born on 7 March 1889 at 10 Leckford Road.
By the time of the 1891 census he and Sarah and their daughter were living at Pembroke Street in St Ebbe's and he described himself as a carrier, manager, and furniture remover. At the time of the 1911 census he was aged 55 and now described himself as a general carrier and employer: he was then living at 217 Banbury Road with his wife and daughter plus their servant. The following year his daughter Winifred married Percy Edgar Mobbs.
On 1 July 1919 Mark James Cowley (together with R. Rippington) became a partner with William George Reed Archer, and the firm changed its name to Archer, Cowley & Co. The 1921 census shows him at the age of 65, described as a furniture remover, living at 217 Banbury Road with his wife.
Mark James Cowley and his wife had moved to Abingdon by 1925, and his wife Sarah died there that year and was buried in Spring Rod Cemetery on 12 May.
The 1939 Register shows him living with his daughter Winifred and her husband Percy Mobbs at 12 Wootton Road there. He died at that address on 23 February 1944 at the age of 87 and was buried with his wife. His effects came to £2,650.