Reasons for Designation
Oxford House, built in 1892 to the designs of Arthur Blomfield, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: a building redolent of the moral fervour and paternalism that characterised Victorian ideas about the causes and remedies of poverty;
* Architectural interest: the traditionally-styled Tudor Revival building, although austere, testifies to the settlement movement's aspiration to be the 'squires of East London';
* Art and craftsmanship: the attic chapel contains a painting of the crucifixion by Alfred Soord, set into a brightly-painted Gothic tracery reredos, and a fine Neo-Jacobean oak screen.
Details
788/0/10281 DERBYSHIRE STREET
15-FEB-11 Oxford House
II
Settlement headquarters, 1891-2, by (Sir) Arthur Blomfield. Later extension (c2002) to the north lacks special interest.
EXTERIOR: Oxford House is a three-storey building, plus a basement and an attic, in a spare Tudor Revival style. The building is constructed of red brick with brick chimneys and a tiled roof. The southern façade is symmetrical, of seven bays with shallow two-bay cross-wings under pitched roofs with gables with stone hexagonal ball finials, coping and kneelers. The main roof is hipped, with a broad, flat area along the ridge (which was originally railed with a timber balustrade) and a timber cupola at its western end. To the west is the former clubhouse of 1894, of three bays with a hipped roof. The outer ground-floor bays of the clubhouse, now windows, were originally the entrance doors. The majority of the windows elsewhere are the originals: timber mullion and transoms with diamond-paned leaded lights, some with four-lights, some with nine. The attic dormer windows, also timber mullion and transoms, have tiled hipped roofs. The three-bay western elevation houses the original principal entrance, set back in an arched opening with carved stops. The entrance doors (not the originals) are up a short flight of steps; a foundation stone on the recessed porch wall records simply November 30th 1891. There is a Victorian post box set into the wall next to the entrance. The windows on the western elevation are arranged in trios with carved brick mullions and have perpendicular arched tops.
To the north and the east is an extension of c2002 which is easily distinguishable from the original building, and lacks special interest; it has a basement and either one or two upper storeys. Original iron area railings run along part of the building's south front.
INTERIOR: has been remodelled several times over, with partitions and suspended ceilings added, but the floor plans reveal that the solid brick walls are largely in the original configuration. Fireplaces survive in several rooms and include a large Tudor-arched fireplace with carved rosettes in the spandrels on the ground floor (now the café, originally the dining room), where there are also octagonal piers and moulded beams. There are numerous smaller cast iron fireplaces with decorative panels and tiled reveals on the upper floors. The first and second floor have spinal corridors off which are individual offices (formerly student's bedrooms); the timber architraves and panelled door reveals survive, but not the doors. The stair, located in the building's north-west corner, is concrete with a twisted metal balustrade and polished hardwood handrail.
In the third-floor attic is the CHAPEL, the best-preserved part of the building. This is panelled in wood with a timber shallow arched-braced roof - nearly a barrel vault - and a narrow Tudor-arched arcade with octagonal columns along its northern side. The east end, raised up by two steps in the High Church manner, features a timber altar and a timber triptych. The latter comprises a central painted panel flanked by carved doors, all with tracery carving. The painting, by Alfred U Soord and dated 1914, depicts the crucifixion and is set into an ogee frame with quatrefoils to the spandrels. The triptych's top has a cornice carved with vines and a row of finials along its crest. The inner faces of the doors are decorated with coloured and gilt paint and show subjects from the Old Testament (to the left) and the symbols of the Evangelists (to the right). At the west end of the chapel, creating a small narthex, is a richly-carved Neo-Jacobean oak screen surmounted by strapwork carving, a wooden cross and obelisk finials. The panelling to the rear of the chapel is inscribed with names of the Fallen of the First World War, and serves as the institution's war memorial. There are various plaques affixed to the panelling which commemorate the lives of people connected with Oxford House. Of particular poignancy are those to Leonard Percival Cooper, who died in the Boer War, and to two undergraduates of Oxford House who died in their twenties: Philip Moor (d. 1887, aged 24) and Frederick Yorre Seawell (d. 1890, aged 25).
HISTORY: Oxford House was built in 1891-2 as a permanent headquarters for a 'settlement', established in Bethnal Green in 1884. The institution was in the vanguard of the settlement movement, which encouraged privileged schoolboys and undergraduates from England's grandest public schools and universities to form 'colonies' in very poor urban areas. Here the students would live and undertake social work, some in preparation for ordination. Oxford House was closely connected with New College and Keble College in Oxford, the latter founded in 1870 in memory of John Keble, the leader of the Tractarian Movement, which sought to recover the Catholic heritage of the Church of England. A report on Oxford House in 1894 described its aims as follows: 'that Oxford men may take part in the social and religious work of the Church in East London; that they may learn something of the life of the poor; may try to better the condition of the working classes as regards health and recreation, mental culture and spiritual teaching; and may offer an example, so far as in them lies, of a simple and religious life'. Walter Besant described the settlements as 'lamps in a dark place'. Yet it was sometimes observed that the undergraduates had as much to gain from their time in the East End than vice versa: a canon of St Paul's Cathedral, Henry Scott Holland, joked at a Mansion House fundraising dinner for Oxford House in 1891 that the settlements provided a refuge for 'the surplus of educated gentlemen'.
Oxford House was founded in the same year as another settlement, Toynbee Hall, and indeed there was some rivalry between the two initiatives (Oxford House promoted High Church spirituality alongside social action, whereas Toynbee Hall, established by dons at Balliol College, was more secular in tone). Having been marginally more successful in raising funds, Oxford House opened in a disused school room (since demolished) in September 1884, just two months before Toynbee Hall was established in purpose-built premises in Whitechapel. By the 1890s, sufficient monies had been collected to build a new headquarters for Oxford House and a site was acquired on Derbyshire Street. The new building was commissioned by the Head of Oxford House, and later Bishop of London, Revd AF Winnington-Ingram. It was to be the private domain of the 'settlers', and included living quarters for twenty undergraduates and the Head of House, common rooms (including a Fives court), and a chapel. Incorporated into the design was a clubhouse for locals, where social activities organised by the settlers took place; this was completed in 1894. There was originally limited interconnection between the two buildings, although their exterior architecture was of a piece. The clubs provided lectures, games and other activities in a controlled and 'dry' environment, to draw men away from public houses. The settlement also offered a 'Poor Man's Lawyer', to help locals with negligence claims at work, and purchased sports facilities (swimming pools and playing fields) for the recreation of local people. The new building was inaugurated in 1892 by the Duke of Connaught, in a ceremony attended by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, six bishops and other ecclesiastical luminaries, underscoring the settlement's religious purpose.
The architect of Oxford House was (Sir) Arthur William Blomfield, son of the Bishop of London, the latter a prominent high churchman who founded several churches in Bethnal Green, including St Peter's and St James the Less. Blomfield junior was architect of the Royal College of Music, London (1894) and the rebuilding of the nave of Southwark Cathedral. He also remodelled and extended countless churches for High Church worship, including St Peter's, Eaton Square. Blomfield built chapels for Eton College, Malvern College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. At Oxford House, he worked for a similar client - dons from Oxford University - but to a much smaller budget than his usual commissions and in an infinitely more cramped, urban location. Like Toynbee Hall, the architecture of Oxford House was in the domestic style of the C16 or C17. The social theory that underpinned the settlement movement was that the traditional order of rural society (where the benevolent gentry supported and moderated the behaviour of the working classes) was utterly lacking in the East End. 'Come and be the squires of East London', the supporters of Oxford House invited undergraduates, and thus the building was designed to evoke a country manor house.
Alfred U Soord was born in Sunderland in 1868, son of Thomas Soord and Jane Usher (from whom his middle name was taken), and died in 1915 aged 46. He studied at the Von Herkomer School of Art in Bushey, Watford and exhibited at the annual Royal Academy exhibitions from 1907-1911. Soord's most famous painting was 'The Lost Sheep', which shows a halo-ed shepherd rescuing a sheep from a steep-sided crevice.
Oxford House was extended to the east after the Second World War, to provide a new hall. In c2002, the extension was replaced with a two-storey building by All Clear Designs Ltd (not of special interest) housing a theatre and studio space, with a link building running along the north side of Oxford House providing level access and a new entrance foyer. The original building is now abutted on two sides by extensions (to the lower storeys only); only a single-storey range on its northern side has been entirely lost.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
Oxford House, built in 1892 to the designs of Arthur Blomfield, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: a building redolent of the moral fervour and paternalism that characterised Victorian ideas about the causes and remedies of poverty;
* Architectural interest: the traditionally-styled Tudor Revival building, although austere, testifies to the settlement movement's aspiration to be the 'squires of East London';
* Art and craftsmanship: the attic chapel contains a painting of the crucifixion by Alfred Soord, set into a brightly-painted Gothic tracery reredos, and a fine Neo-Jacobean oak screen.
This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 25 October 2017.
