Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear
Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear, 38, Holywell Street
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1246930
- Date first listed:
- 04-Dec-2000
- List Entry Name:
- Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear
- Statutory Address:
- Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear, 38, Holywell Street
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1246930
- Date first listed:
- 04-Dec-2000
- List Entry Name:
- Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear
- Statutory Address 1:
- Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear, 38, Holywell Street
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear, 38, Holywell Street
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Oxfordshire
- District:
- Oxford (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- SP 51592 06543
Details
SP5106NE
612/6/10066
HOLYWELL STREET (North side)
38, Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear
04-DEC-00
GV
II
College buildings and bookshop. 1969-70 by Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia for Wadham College. Reinforced concrete, with lead-clad timber to Holywell Court at rear. Concrete tiled roofs to front.Complex plan.
Ground-floor and basement shop facing Holywell Street, with two storeys of student accommodation on upper floors behind. The deep plan of the rebuilt shop forms a terrace in the College gardens, with lightwells giving natural light down into the basement of the bookshop, and lighting a sunken courtyard, Fellows' Court, set behind the rear of the King's Arms (already listed).
Free vernacular-inspired design. Long strip clerestory window with side-opening casements. Two-stage roof to front, the lower ridge incorporating irregularly-placed rooflights. Timber windows to upper storeys. Ground floor set below deep, fluted concrete lintel, with concrete panels flanking floor to ceiling shop window with tinted glass, which incorporates a light-well to basement and a steel grill for security. Another lightwell to the rear of the shop gives more natural light to basement and forms a strong visual feature. Light black steel windows, and doors into stone-paved courtyard. The rear elevation is rendered and is Georgian in character. Behind the shop is a flat slab forming a terrace within the grounds of Wadham College, which overlooks this lightwell, and to the side an enclosed set of accommodation, called Holywell Court. The rooms give on to a central sunken courtyard, with stone paving, and have elevations lined in lead with heavy metal window sections and repeated clerestory strip. Holywell Court has Douglas fir boarded ceilings, and varnished oak doors internally. Oak bookshelves, designed by the architects, line the walls of the bookshop, which also features some York stone paving.
Blackwell's Music Shop was opened on 9 November 1970 by Sir Adrian Boult. Gillespie, Kidd and Coia were consultant architects to Wadham College, who owned the site, and this is the most public element of their extensive works for the college. The building has wit and imagination in responding to a tight site of international historic importance. The result is a notable landmark to Holywell Street, with a compact and elegant terrace and courtyards to the rear, and a distinctive and unusual building from this remarkable practice. `It fits in while having a real personality of its own' (Architects' Journal, 17 January 1973, p.151)
Sources
Oxford City Council Building Control Records
Architectural Review, October 1971, pp.206-16
Information from Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan
Architects' Journal, 17 January 1973, p.151
Listing NGR: SP5159206552
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 486895
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Building Control Records in Building Control Records, ()
Architects Journal in 17 January, (1973), 151
Architectural Review in October, (1971), 206-216
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 20-Jun-2026 at 09:41:30.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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