Oxford Bar, 8-8A Young Street, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Entry Name: Oxford Bar, 8-8A Young Street, Edinburgh

Listing Name: 8 and 8A Young Street, the Oxford Bar, and 2 Young Street Lane South

Listing Date: 3 March 1966

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 370739

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB30005

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Edinburgh, 8-8a Young Street, Oxford Bar
The Oxford Bar, Edinburgh
Oxford Bar

ID on this website: 200370739

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: City Centre

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Pub

Description

John Young, soon after 1779. 2-storey, half-sunk basement and attic, 3-bay classical former house on corner site. Droved cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings, painted at ground. Eaves cornice. At ground, timber framing and cornice to public bar; elaborate wrought-iron bracket with bar sign; early lettering 'Bernard's Pale Ale' affixed to left hand window. Pair of very large piend-roofed canted slate-hung dormers. 2-bay coursed rubble gable end; 3-stories to rear. Later single storey and attic 3-bay stugged and snecked sandstone house adjoins to rear (No 2 Young Street Lane South).

Timber sash and case windows; uPVC non-traditional windows at 1st floor. Ashlar coped skews; stone stacks (partly rebuilt and rendered to E).

INTERIOR: 4-panelled timber doors; timber boarded panelling to dado. Moulded cornice to central corridor; simple cornice to main bar at left. L-plan timber-panelled bar counter. Simple low gantry with cupboards and mirror. Carved timber chimneypiece partly obscured by counter in main bar; brick chimneypiece in sitting area at right.

Statement of Interest

A Group with Nos 10-22 (even nos) Young Street as a significant surviving part of the original fabric of the New Town, one of the most important and best preserved examples of urban planning in Britain. Young Street and Hill Street contain the smartest versions of the 2-storey New Town house. This is a simple classical astylar building and is an important component of one of the secondary streets of James Craig's First New Town.

The site was feued to the builder John Young in 1779, and became officially known as Young Street in 1806. The Oxford Bar (No 8) apparently became a public house in 1811, although it was a confectioner's shop in 1843. It was disponed on 30 October 1893 to Andrew Wilson, wines and spirits merchant, and thereafter remained a public bar.

The Oxford Bar retains its compartmentalised form and is therefore an important survival Many public houses have lost their original form with the removal of the walls enclosing small rooms and snugs. The Oxford originally consisting of a central corridor with rooms to right and left, but the corridor has been opened up to the left with an archway into the small stand-up bar but the original form is still clear. The room to the right is accessed from a door toward the rear. The most significant change that it has undergone since becoming a bar is the lowering of the floor level in the corridor and stand-up bar. The chimneypiece on the left wall remains suspended at a high level. The floor level of the room at the right is still on a higher level with steps up at the end of the corridor.

List description updated as part of the Public Houses Thematic Study 2007-08.

External Links

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