Summary
A terrace of four houses, built during the 1820s, converted to various uses during the C20 including shops and offices, now flats.
Reasons for Designation
171-177 Oxford Road, Reading is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an early-C19 building which contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.
Group value:
* the building is in close proximity to a large number of listed buildings and forms part of a strong historic grouping.
History
Until the C19, most of the land west of Reading town centre was open farmland crossed by two ancient routes passing through the town from London to the West Country. Today, the northern of these two roads is named Oxford Road, while the southern is named Castle Street/Castle Hill/Bath Road. Inns and some isolated dwellings probably existed on these roads before the C18. Fortifications were built throughout the area by Royalist forces garrisoned in the town during the Civil War with some of the earthworks surviving into the early C19.
From the early C18, development slowly began to spread westward along Castle Hill/Bath Road and Oxford Road. John Rocque’s Map of Berkshire (1761) depicts ribbon development along Castle Hill/Bath Road extending as far as the junction with Tilehurst Road, and individual houses within grounds along Oxford Road about as far as the present-day location of Russell Street. More comprehensive development of the area began in the early C19 and progressed gradually over the next 100 years. Development spread further along Castle Street/Castle Hill, with some of the earlier buildings depicted on Rocque’s map seemingly replaced. North-south link roads also were laid out across the market gardens that previously existed between Oxford Road and Bath Road. Terraced housing was erected in considerable quantities during the first half of the century to cater for a variety of social groups.
171-177 Oxford Road is a terrace of four townhouses constructed in the 1820s during the westward expansion of Reading’s inner suburbs. The terrace, along with 149-169 Oxford Road (Grade II-listed, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1113546), appears to have originally been named Sydney Terrace. A newspaper article of 1874 relating to the sale of number 173 described the house as ‘heretofore known as No. 16 Sydney-terrace, but now distinguished as No. 173 Oxford-road, Reading’ (Reading Mercury, 19 September 1874, p1). This name is of note, as two pairs of villas on the opposite side of Oxford Road, at 120 and 122 (Grade II-listed, NHLE entry 1302871) and 130 (much altered, not listed) were historically named ‘Sydney Villas’ and ‘Sydney Cottage’ respectively, suggesting a connection between the construction of the buildings on either side of Oxford Road (OS Town Plan of Reading, 1879). The earliest found reference to Sydney Terrace is a newspaper article of 1830, relating to the sale of one of the properties, providing a date before which the terrace must have been constructed (Reading Mercury, 26 July 1830, p1).
171 OXFORD ROAD: a newspaper article of 1883 relating to the sale of 171 Oxford Road describes it as a ‘good ten-roomed house [with a] good garden’ (Reading Observer, 6 October 1883, p5). In 1984, the house was converted into offices and was subsequently used as an estate agents (Reading Evening Post, 12 April 1984, p17; Reading Evening Post, 13 June 1985, p16). At the same time, permission was granted for the erection of flats, and this may relate to the two-storey house built at the end of the garden of number 171 fronting Goldsmid Street, which remains in use as flats.
173 OXFORD ROAD: the house was sold twice in quick succession, in 1874 and in 1880 (Berkshire Chronicle, 26 September 1874, p1; 18 December 1880, p1). An advertisement relating to the sale of the house in 1880 described it as a ‘well-built freehold private residence’ with five bedrooms spread across the first and second floors (Berkshire Chronicle, 18 December 1880, p1). A two-storey, rear extension in red brick was added during the late C19. Between 2012 and 2015, uPVC windows were installed on the first and second floors, but the property now (2020) appears to be vacant, with the windows to the rear having been boarded up.
175 OXFORD ROAD: this property is first mentioned in a newspaper article relating to its sale in 1881, where it is described as a ‘substantially-built freehold residence… now known as 175, Oxford Road, Reading (late 17, Sydney Terrace)’ (Reading Mercury, 25 June 1881, p3). Number 175 was advertised for sale in 1906, being described as a ‘freehold residence, capable of development into Shop Property at a small cost’ (Berkshire Chronicle, 3 July 1906, p1). The basement subsequently appears to have been converted into a shop, and in 1908, number 175 is recorded as housing a motorcycle and car repair shop (Berkshire Chronicle, 15 April 1908, p2). Around this time, an outbuilding was constructed at the end of the garden fronting Goldsmid Street. In 1921, the property was occupied by a tailor’s named J Album (Reading Observer, 1 October 1921, p4). Its subsequent history of occupation is unclear. A rear, two-storey, flat-roofed extension in brick was added in the 1910s or 1920s. In the late C20, a pair of garages were installed at the end of the property’s rear garden facing onto Goldsmid Street, incorporating brickwork from the earlier outbuilding in this location. The basement shop front has been blocked up and the property now (2020) appears to have been converted to flats throughout.
177 OXFORD ROAD: by 1883, 177 Oxford Road was in use as a school and kindergarten known as Frobel House School (Reading Observer, 21 April 1883, p4). The school does not appear to have remained there for much longer, and the latest reference to the school is a newspaper advertisement of 1888 (Reading Observer, 7 January 1888, p5). The subsequent history of occupation at number 177 is unclear, although a shop front was installed at basement level at the same time as at number 175 (around 1906). By 1967, the building housed a car dealership and by 1989, the upper floors had been converted to offices (Reading Evening Post, 5 April 1967, p14; 11 May 1995, p26). The basement shop front was bricked up in the 1990s or 2000s, and the building has now been subdivided into flats.
There is a complex historical relationship between number 177 and the neighbouring building plot to the west, numbered 179 Oxford Road, involving several phases of change in terms of built form and ownership. The 1875 OS town plan of Reading shows that number 177, at the western end of the terrace, was almost twice the size of the other properties in the terrace and probably included part of the building now forming 179 Oxford Road. It also shows that its existing full-height bow window to the rear was extant by this date. The visible part of the western gable wall of number 177 does not appear to have been rebuilt or significantly altered, so it is likely that the additional western part of the building was lower than the extant building, which is of three storeys plus basement. By 1931, the western part of number 177 (present-day 179 Oxford Road) had been extended further back into the rear garden. The footprint of the building did not change again until the 2010s when the western half of number 177 was split off from the current 177 Oxford Road and combined with the adjoining property, numbered 179 Oxford Road, a two-storey shop constructed between 1898 and 1909.
Images of Oxford Road as late as 2015 show a three-storey shop adjoining number 177 to the west, of smaller floor-to-ceiling heights than number 177, with C19 stucco and classical detailing on the second floor, which was probably the western element of number 177 shown on historic mapping, with a much-altered frontage. Immediately to the west was a two-storey shop – the infill property built in around 1898-1909. Between 2015 and 2017, these two shops were remodelled and combined as number 179 to create a series of flats, with a unified, neoclassical frontage. Any historical relationship between number 177 and the western portion of number 179, which probably contains fabric that was historically part of 177, is now unintelligible. Also as a part of these works, a large, two-storey house was constructed at the end of the garden of number 177 fronting Goldsmid Road, with most of the remaining garden converted to use as a car park.
Details
Terrace of four houses, built during the 1820s, converted to various uses during the C20 including shops and offices, now flats.
MATERIALS AND PLAN: the terrace is of red brick in Flemish bond with a slate roof covering and iron railings. Three storeys plus basement.
EXTERIOR: the terrace comprises four townhouses each with three bays onto Oxford Road, under a pitched roof punctuated by ridgeline chimney stacks on the western party wall of each property. The four houses are of matching design. The main entrance is located in the easternmost bay of the raised ground floor and comprises a round-arched recess accessed via a flight of steps from the street with iron handrails. All four properties have modern front doors, although number 177 appears to retain an historic, sunburst fanlight. There are two window openings to the west of the front door, then three windows each at first- and second-floor levels, with those on the second floor being smaller than on the ground and first floors. The central windows on the second floor of numbers 171, 175 and 177 are blocked. All the window openings have gauged-brickwork flat-arch heads, and all but three contain modern, uPVC casements (there is a six-over-six sash above the front door at number 175, and two, two-pane sashes on the raised ground floor of number 173).
At basement level there are two windows under gauged brickwork flat arches and steps down to a door beneath the main entrance. At numbers 175 and 177, there are early-C20 blank shop fasciae and console brackets above the basement windows, which have been enlarged. These two properties also have arrowhead railings along their front boundary, whereas numbers 171 and 173 have lost their boundary treatments.
There are rear extensions on all four properties. Those at numbers 171, 173 and 175 appear to be C20 additions, while at number 177, there is a three-storey bow window on the western half of the rear elevation and a two-storey extension alongside, filling the remaining width of the plot. Aside from the bow at number 177, there does not appear to be any surviving historic features of note on the rear elevation of the properties.
Numbers 171, 173 and 177 retain large rear gardens, while that of number 177 has been significantly curtailed through the creation of a car park serving a house fronting onto Goldsmid Road to the south.
