35 and 37 New Oxford Street, Holborn and Covent Garden, Camden

Summary

Terrace of shops and former offices or chambers, now studio flats. Built in about 1847 as part of New Oxford Street laid out to plans by (Sir) James Pennethorne, Joint Architect and Surveyor for the Metropolitan Improvements to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests with Thomas Chawner. The architect was probably Thomas Stead, surveyor to the Bedford Estate, and the builder was Hugh Welch Cooper. The shopfronts were altered in the C20 and 2019, whilst the upper floors were altered as studio flats in about the 1990s.

Description

MATERIALS: London stock-brick faced in stucco to the front elevation with slate and tile roof coverings and clay chimney pots.

PLAN: a four-storey terrace with shops to the ground floor and former offices or chambers to the first, second and third floors which have latterly been converted to studio flats; two to each floor. The basement contains former shop storage space and bathrooms, as well as former coal-vaults.

EXTERIORS: each terrace property is two-bays wide with modern shopfronts to the ground floor and three storeys of sash windows above. The shopfront to 35 New Oxford Street has two entrances with transom-lights above separated by bay windows. Number 37 New Oxford Street has a single plate-glass window and two entrances set side-by-side. The ground floors each retain stuccoed pilasters (which have lost their bases) with fielded panels and large, highly decorative, scrolled consoles. The sash windows to the floors above are set in moulded architrave surrounds with fielded panels and have scrolled consoles enriched with floral decoration supporting moulded cornices. There are one-over-one plate glass sashes to 35 New Oxford Street and six-over-six sashes with narrow glazing bars to the first and second floors of 37 New Oxford Street. The windows reflect classical proportions; the piano nobile at first floor and shorter sashes to the third floor, or attic storey, comprising three-over-six panes to 37 New Oxford Street. Above the third floor of each property is a heavy dentilled cornice supported by squared consoles beneath a parapet. There are butterfly roofs to each property; Number 35 has a slate-covered roof with red clay ridge tiles, whilst Number 37 has a concrete-tile roof covering.

The rear (south) elevation has a bay of six-over-six sash windows to each storey and one small single-light window to the second floor of 35 New Oxford Street, and a bay of six-over-six sashes and a bay of late C20 round pivoted windows to 37 New Oxford Street.

INTERIORS: each terraced property has former shops to the ground floor and quarter-turn staircases leading to the first floor, which together with the second and third floors are occupied by 1990s studio flats. The upper floors originally had a two-room plan with front and back rooms separated by 180 degree turn winder stairs; each of these rooms now form a separate flat. However, in places the properties are now (2022) interconnecting, with some walls knocked through in 2019 particularly at basement level. The upper staircases have turned newel posts and balusters and timber handrails. Some original joinery survives to the rooms, such as moulded door surrounds, cornices, picture rails and skirtings, particularly to 35 New Oxford Street. On the second floor of number 35 there is a fireplace, which has a cast-iron arched register grate and a timber surround with a frieze decorated with paterae and fluted pilasters and corbels supporting a moulded mantel shelf. The studio flats have 1990s or 2000s fitted kitchen units* and sanitary ware*. Those to number 37 have raised bed platforms* with balustrades incorporating reused turned balusters, newel posts and handrails. The basements are separated into several rooms, largely with 1990s or 2000s fixtures and fittings*, including some modern plaster-board partitions*. However, at the front of each basement is a pair of original brick barrel-vaulted coal stores.

EXCLUSIONS
* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned structures and/or features are not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works to these structures and/or features which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require Listed Building Consent (LBC) and this is a matter for the Local Planning Authority (LPA) to determine.

History

Numbers 33-45 New Oxford Street, 10-12 Museum Street and 16, 16A, 16B and 18 West Central Street form an urban block. The streets initially developed in the C17, although many of the buildings date from around the mid-C19 when the area was shaped by the cutting through of New Oxford Street as part of some major metropolitan improvements. During the earlier C19, London’s population had doubled to well over two million people as a result of rural migration to become the largest and wealthiest city in the world. This rapid growth caused severe strains on the central streets; traffic jams from horse-drawn coaches, carriages and omnibus’s occupied streets linking the City and the West End, and those leading north from the bridges and the docks (Tyack 1987, 81). Meanwhile, there were concerns about the threat to public health and order posed by worsening conditions in the city slums. Regent Street, built for the government in 1819 under the direction of the architect John Nash introduced a new standard of street architecture into the capital (Tyack 1992, 44). The City Corporation followed suit in 1825 to 1831, after the building of the new London Bridge, constructing several new streets, widening existing streets and providing sewers.

Sir James Pennethorne (1801-1871) was one of the leading architects and urban planners of the mid-C19 (Tyack 1987, 2). He proved an important figure in a transitional phase of metropolitan improvements post-dating those carried out by John Nash but preceding those of the Metropolitan Board of Works created in 1856. Pennethorne was Nash’s protégé. He joined his London office in 1820 and took charge of it 10 years later upon Nash’s retirement. In 1839, he was appointed ‘Architect and Surveyor for Metropolitan Improvements’ by the government to plan new streets through or near the heart of London (Tyack 2008). He initially held the post jointly with Thomas Chawner but gradually took on most of the responsibility and became sole surveyor in 1845 (Tyack 1992, 48). Pennethorne and Chawner executed four major new streets in the 1840s: New Oxford Street (see below), Cranbourne Street, Endell Street and Commercial Street. In 1841, they designed Victoria Park, the first park in any English city to be laid out with public funds for the benefit of the working classes (Tyack 2008). Among Pennethorne’s many other works are Battersea Park, the Public Record Office at Chancery Lane, the west wing at Somerset House, and the south range to Buckingham Palace. He has been deemed one of the most accomplished architects of his age who played a crucial part in shaping mid-Victorian London (Ibid).

New Oxford Street was by far the most important and ambitious of the four new streets laid out by Pennethorne and Chawner in the 1840s (Tyack 1992, 50). It would run eastwards from Oxford Street, bypassing St Giles High Street, a major bottleneck, and send traffic in a more direct route to Holborn, the City and the north-eastern suburbs. The proposed alignment of the street would cut through one of London’s most notorious slums, known as the St Giles Rookery; the setting for Hogarth’s ‘Gin Lane’. Comprised of narrow lanes and close courts, this area was hugely overcrowded. It was considered to be a safe haven for criminals, as well as a breeding-ground for cholera and other diseases (Tyack 1987, 90-92). The houses were generally in poor repair, none possessed drains and there were no sewers. More widely, it was feared that the slums could lead to insurrection. At this time, it was thought that the spread of epidemic diseases was exacerbated by stagnant air and that the construction of wide new streets could introduce fresh air or ‘ventilation’, as well as enable the construction of proper sewers and waste disposal (Ibid, 89). The Rookery was in multiple ownership and many of the owners had neither the power or inclination to improve the quality of the area, especially whilst the rents flowed in. Therefore, to many observers, including Pennethorne, the solution seemed to be total demolition, urban re-planning and the laying out of the new thoroughfare. A detailed scheme was drawn up for the new street and the associated redevelopment of property. The initial plan was for a street 65 feet wide with a piazza halfway along, and predominantly four storey buildings ‘of handsome elevations’ (Parliamentary Papers 1840, Minutes of Evidence, 21 Feb 1840, 14). However, financial difficulties arose and a revised scheme was adopted which reduced the width of the street to 50 feet, omitted the piazza, cut down redevelopment and left about half of the Rookery still standing. Pennethorne warned against the latter as it would supress the value of the plots and limit the scheme’s potential success.

In autumn 1841, Pennethorne and Chawner began negotiations for the acquisition of property along New Oxford Street and by early 1843 demolitions commenced. In February 1845, 35 plots on New Oxford Street were advertised on 80-year building leases. Drawings and specifications were subject to prior approval and leases were only granted when Pennethorne had certified the completed carcass of the building (i.e. the structural shell, complete with roofs, floors and drainage). Pennethorne decided against a uniform frontage, fearing that such a requirement would supress rental values, but required that each plot receive a unified architectural treatment, allowing a measure of stylistic diversity while recognising that in some cases lots would be amalgamated into an urban block. Many of the elevations were submitted to be vetted by Pennethorne and the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, Lord Lincoln, who both insisted on alterations from time to time, and, according to Tyack, in its finished form the street embodied Pennethorne’s taste in an indirect way (1987, 102). By the start of 1847 enough buildings had been erected to form ‘a tolerably connected vista’ (Illustrated London News, 2 Jan 1847, 15).

New Oxford Street became a major route as soon as it opened and its value later increased when Hart Street (now Bloomsbury Way) was also extended through Theobalds Road to Clerkenwell Road, Old Street and the East End. In 1847, one commentator described the architecture as ‘incomparably superior to that of Regent Street, which is excessively flimsy and jejune’ (Tyack 1992, 58). At the western end a shopping bazaar was designed in 1848, whilst further east there were three churches in contrasting styles and a block of neo-Jacobean shops and offices designed by Pennethorne, one of the first uses of the style for commercial purposes (Ibid). The street developed a solidly respectable character but did not become a shopping destination in the same way as Regent Street, partly due to the continued presence of part of the Rookery which is said to have deterred shoppers. Overcrowding in that area significantly increased. One solution was to provide improved housing in the immediate area and in 1849 the Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes built Parnell House (Grade II*-listed, List entry 1378865) less than 150m from this city block; the earliest surviving example of flats built to provide accommodation for the ‘deserving poor’ in regular employment. Landlords of the remaining parts of the Rookery also began to improve their properties in the hope of attracting a ‘better class’ of inhabitants (Ibid 64). According to Tyack, Pennethorne’s streets therefore played an important part in the growth of social awareness (1987, 109), although the rehousing of those displaced by New Oxford Street was not adequately considered or resolved.

35 and 37 New Oxford Street were built in about 1847 with shops to the ground floors and offices or ‘chambers’ above. The new road clipped the south-west corner of the block, which had previously fronted onto Castle Street, necessitating the redevelopment of properties to the east of Castle Brewery, including the Crown public house at 16 Museum Street, which was pulled down in 1844 (Morning Advertiser, 22 March 1848, 4). The building leases advertised in February 1845 included Lot 16, a shallow and irregularly shaped plot with an 87-feet frontage to New Oxford Street and a short return to Museum Street. The freehold of Lot 16 was sold to the Bedford Estate, who amalgamated it with 13 Museum Street to the south. The resulting plot was then subdivided into five plots corresponding to the present Numbers 33-41 New Oxford Street. In January 1848, the Bedford Estate granted 80-year leases for Numbers 35-41 to Hugh Welch Cooper ‘in consideration of the expense incurred by the lessee in erecting the building’ (Camden Archives: D 3534). Cooper (1789–1875) was a builder who from at least the 1830s occupied a yard at Wakefield Street, Bloomsbury. He is recorded at several sites on New Oxford Street between 1845 and 1851 either as a contractor or a builder-developer. Whilst it is possible that Cooper may have employed an architect, or even supplied the design himself, it is most likely that the buildings were designed by the surveyor to the Bedford Estate, Thomas Stead. When the lease to the Old Crown (also built by Cooper) was advertised for sale in 1865 it was stated that the property had been ‘erected under the superintendence of the surveyor to his Grace the Duke of Bedford’ (Morning Advertiser, 5 Jun 1865, 8). It is therefore likely that the same practice was adopted for 35-41 New Oxford Street given that the Bedford Estate also held the freehold for those properties. These buildings all originally received the same architectural treatment, whilst 43 New Oxford Street and 10-12 Museum Street were also given matching elevations in the 1860s.

The shop of 35 New Oxford Street housed the ‘magical warehouse’ of James Bland in the later C19 before being used as a Hamleys toy shop in 1902 to 1915 (Camden History Society 2016, 32). The city block was sold by the Bedford Estate to E S Halford in 1913. In about the 1990s, the upper floors of 35 and 37 New Oxford Street were converted to studio flats. In 2019, the buildings were used as part of the ‘Variant 31’ zombie game, stated to be one of the largest live action experiences in the world, employing large numbers of actors. The walls were painted and some false finishes applied to provide a deliberately grimy, derelict appearance as part of the experience.

Reasons for Listing

35 and 37 New Oxford Street, London, a terrace of shops with offices, built in about 1847, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as part of New Oxford Street, a major urban thoroughfare and important element of London’s early Victorian metropolitan improvements overseen by (Sir) James Pennethorne aimed at alleviating congestion and overcrowding following rapid population growth, as well as reducing crime, improving sanitation and public health.

Architectural interest:

* for the architectural quality and detailing of the street elevations with their stuccoed pilasters, decorative consoles, moulded architrave surrounds to the windows which reflect classical proportions, and heavy dentilled cornices;

* the 1840s exteriors are relatively well-preserved, whilst the internal layouts generally remain legible despite later alterations, retaining several features, particularly to number 35, such as barrel-vaulted coal stores, staircases with turned newel posts and balusters, a fireplace with a cast-iron register grate, and a range of joinery.

Group value:

* 35 and 37 New Oxford Street form part of a strong grouping of C19 buildings to this urban block, most of which are given matching or similar architectural treatment in association with the New Oxford Street development.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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