The Old Crown, 33 New Oxford Street, Holborn and Covent Garden, Camden

Summary

Public house. 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 almost certainly Thomas Stead, surveyor to the Bedford Estate, and the builder was Hugh Welch Cooper. Ground floor and internal alterations in the C20, and to the fourth floor offices in about the 2010s.

Description

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

PLAN: a five-storey terrace with a public house to the ground, first and second floor, a kitchen to the third floor and offices to the fourth floor. The basement contains a beer cellar which also occupies the former coal-vaults.

EXTERIOR: a corner terrace property with two-bays fronting onto New Oxford Street and three-bays onto Museum Street. The public house frontage to New Oxford Street once had a three-light window with a central arched light, in the same style as that to the east elevation, but the cill has been removed to form French windows. The ground floor bays are separated by granite pilasters. Surmounting the last pilaster separating 33 and 35 New Oxford Street is a large decorative scrolled console. Above the windows is a plain panel for the pub signage topped by a cornice, both of which carry around the return to Museum Street. The main entrance to the pub is set on the corner via a half-glazed panelled door beneath a transom light. The Museum Street elevation has a five-light window comprising one large arched central light flanked by four smaller lights. The upper part is divided into subsidiary lights. It is separated by two granite pilasters from a panelled door and single-light window to the south, which are set in a wooden surround with a transom light above. A further pilaster surmounted by a large decorative scrolled console separates the pub from 12 Museum Street. At the end of each elevation and above the pub entrance are large decorative lanterns. The sash windows to the upper floors are set in moulded architrave surrounds with fielded panels and have scrolled consoles enriched with floral decoration supporting moulded cornices. There are six-over-six sashes with narrow glazing bars to the first and second floors. The windows reflect classical proportions; the piano nobile at first floor and shorter sashes to the third floor, comprising three-over-six panes, and the fourth floor, comprising three-over-three panes. Above the third floor is a heavy dentilled cornice supported by squared consoles whilst above the fourth floor is a further cornice and a parapet. Each elevation has large rusticated quoins. The property has a slate-covered hipped roof and brick chimney stacks with clay chimney pots. At the rear of 33 New Oxford Street, the south elevation is faced in brick with a single bay of sash windows to each floor.

INTERIOR: the ground floor, originally partitioned into a large saloon lounge and small public bar, now forms a single open-plan public bar with a servery set against the south wall. It has a modern wooden bar counter* with fielded panels to the front, and shelving*, organ pipes*, and a dumbwaiter* behind. There is a wooden floor and a moulded coffered ceiling with chandeliers*. A wooden double-L stairs with a later timber handrail attached to the wall leads up to a small first floor lounge and male and female toilets. The lounge has a wooden floor, banquette leather seating*, a plain brick fireplace without a surround, and wall panelling*. The toilets have modern sanitary ware*, fixtures and fittings* throughout. A winder stairs with decorative cast-iron balusters, a carved timber newel post (which appears to be a later replacement), and wooden handrail leads up to the second floor. There is wainscoting to the staircase wall and a dado rail. On the second floor is a public bar and a small lavatory with modern sanitary ware*. The bar has a servery placed against the south wall, which has a modern wooden bar counter* with fielded panels to the front and shelving* behind. A modern quarter-turn stairs* leads up to a store room and kitchen on the third floor. The store room has modern units* and shelving* whilst the kitchen is tiled with a linoleum floor* and modern stainless steel units*, extractor fans*, a dumbwaiter* and other modern fixtures and fittings*. The fourth floor is approached by a winder stairs. At the top of the staircase is a storeroom with a historic panelled door. There are two offices on this floor, largely with modern fixtures and fittings*, including glazed partitioning*, although there is also an original fireplace containing a cast-iron Pantheon hob grate, and a blocked brick fireplace. In the pub basement are the original brick coal vaults and a beer cellar approached by a winder stairs.

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.

The Old Crown Pub at 33 New Oxford Street was built in about 1847 almost certainly to the design of the Bedford Estate Surveyor Thomas Stead. It was constructed by Hugh Welch Cooper (1789–1875), 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. 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. When the lease to the Old Crown 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). 35-41 New Oxford Street 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 city block was sold by the Bedford Estate to E S Halford in 1913.

Hugh Welch Cooper was initially the licensee of the Old Crown and resided in the building in 1861 alongside his wife, the barman, a servant, a cook, a ‘potman’ and lodgers. The subsequent licensees included Henry Speed in 1862, William Chapman in 1882-1899, Ernest Fleck in 1904-1906, and the Brake family in 1934-1955. It was tied to several brewery companies; initially Hoare & Co, and then Charrington Brewery, and Copes Taverns from 1956. The pub appears to have been refronted at a later date, perhaps during the Edwardian period, with granite pilasters and large plate glass windows. A historic photo (date uncertain but appears to be early C20) shows the ground floor separated into a public bar and larger saloon lounge. It now has an open plan public bar on the ground floor, a lounge or karaoke room on the first floor, and a bar on the second floor.

Reasons for Listing

The Old Crown public house forming 33 New Oxford Street, London, 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 33 New Oxford Street façade originally helped ‘bookend’ this row of properties following the construction of 43 to an essentially matching five storey design;

* the most imposing and arguably best-preserved 1840s exterior of this street block, which is further complemented by the good quality later ground floor pub frontage, probably from the Edwardian period, with its granite pilasters and large plate glass windows. Additionally, there are some surviving historic internal features, such as barrel-vaulted coal stores, a staircase with decorative cast-iron balusters, a fireplace with a cast-iron Pantheon hob grate, a coffered ceiling and some joinery.

Group value:

* with Grade II-listed 43-45 New Oxford Street and 16 West Central Street, as well as 35-37 New Oxford Street and 10-12 Museum Street, which complement the architectural design of these buildings and form part of an important group of early to mid-C19 buildings within the Bloomsbury Conservation Area.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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