2-4, Charlbury Road Oxford, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

612/0/10164 CHARLBURY ROAD 07-OCT-08 2-4

II BUILDING: pair of semi-detached houses.

DATE: 1908-9 with minor alterations.

ARCHITECT: by Stephen Salter. Built by Henry Wild.

MATERIALS: red brick, part roughcast, with tile-hung gabled wings and dormers. Tall gabled centrepiece has dramatic half-timbering with waved pattern, and pargetting with scrolls, sea-creatures and shell. Plain tile roof with waved bargeboards and brick stacks. White-painted wooden casements with glazing bars.

PLAN: Irregular U-plan

FAÇADE: 1908-9 with minor alterations in the Domestic Revival style, on a symmetrical U-plan, with hipped roof over 2-storey and attic main range, and projecting side wings of 1½ storeys. Catslide roof of main range descends over angles to form porches on wooden posts with shaped brackets and Ionic capitals. Panelled doors with small-pane top glazing. Central gable has partitioned lunette gable with wildly waving half-timbering, and pargetting to suggests the character of a grand gatehouse [the decoration is not shown on Salter's original drawings but the pargetting is very similar in style to the carved ashlar decoration on his gables at Lloyds Bank, Carfax of 1900-1]. Side wings have jetties over ground-floor bays and first-floor oriels; flat-roofed dormers, those to main roof long and narrow, with 4 lights. External alterations include narrow side extension to No.4, and enlargement of rear French doors to same; small extensions to rear, and addition of small garage to side of No. 2. Original plans by Salter (City Engineer's Archives NS 1419) do not include half-timbered and pargetted decoration.

INTERIORS: interior of No. 4 has been altered to open up rear ground-floor rooms and has cornicing renewed after flood damage. Surviving original features include: Art Nouveau fireplaces with green tiles in brick pattern or with relief decoration; plate rack in former study; splat baluster staircase; lunette glazing with wobbly glass and pale green margins; original panelled doors and frames. Interior of No. 2 not seen.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: small garage to side of No. 2. Garage dates from 1928 and is of interest as early type of very narrow width.

HISTORY: the North Oxford suburb evolved from about 1860 on land owned by St. John's College, with the College gradually making available discreet sets of building plots to lease as it sought to ensure a firm financial future for its endowment. St. John's kept strict control of the development, both in terms of the scale of the houses, and their distribution. All designs were vetted for quality, and to ensure adequate provision of front walls and railings, and rear gardens. In the late C19 Oxford began to grow still northward, and the southern half of Charlbury Road was developed between 1905 and 1909. This semi-detached pair of houses dates from 1908-9 and was designed by Stephen Salter and built by Henry Wild.

SOURCES: T. Hinchcliffe, North Oxford (1992); original plans by Salter (City Engineer's Archives NS 1419) [do not include half-timbered and pargetted decoration].

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: There are many speculatively constructed villas of the later C19 and early C20 in North Oxford, and great care needs to be exercised in selecting from among them those which through their design, or historic significance, meet the criteria to be added to the list. This pair of semi-detached houses of 1908-9 by Stephen Salter in the Domestic Revival style is imaginatively composed on a U-plan with a massive hipped roof rising behind gabled side wings and descending catslide over porches in the angles. Externally there are various good decorative features, while inspection of the interior of No. 4 revealed some opening up of ground-floor plan but survival of many original fixtures, including variety of Art Nouveau fireplaces.