Summary
A pair of semi-detached villas, built between the 1820s and late 1830s.
Reasons for Designation
120 and 122 Oxford Road are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an early- to mid-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.
120 and 122 Oxford Road are a pair of semi-detached villas constructed sometime between the 1820s and late 1830s, during the westward expansion of Reading’s inner suburbs along Oxford Road (then known as Pangbourne Road). The building first appears on the OS town plan of Reading published in 1879, where it is labelled as ‘Sydney Villas’. This may have been the original name of the building, as a newspaper article of 1847 refers to the letting of number 2 Sydney Villas on Oxford Road (Reading Mercury, 19 June 1847, p3).
Both properties appear to have remained as undivided, private residences late into the C20. 120 Oxford Road was a board residence in the early 1970s, before being converted to office use in the 1980s (Reading Evening Post, 12 January 1970, p12; 23 April 1984, p10). In around 1991, number 120 was converted to use as a taxi operator base. Five years later, the building was converted to use as a car hire centre, with the rear garden, which had by that time been concreted, used to store a fleet of cars. The car hire company vacated the building in 2006, after which time the building sat vacant for around five years. 122 Oxford Road had been converted to flats by the 1970s (Reading Evening Post, 21 December 1971, p14).
Both properties have experienced some external alterations since construction. The stairs to the front door of number 120, located on the side elevation of the property, appear to have been reconstructed in the early to mid-C20. Adjoining the flight of stairs at number 120 is a flat-roofed, brick toilet block rising through two storeys and an adjoining single-storey outhouse. A small side extension is shown in this location on the OS map of 1875 and later maps until the 1930s, but unlike the existing structures, it does not adjoin the stairs. The brickwork appears to be of the early C20, and the outbuildings may have been added at the same time as the stairs were reconstructed. There is a single-storey brick outbuilding on the side elevation of number 122, which appears to have been extant by 1875.
Between 2012 and 2017, number 120 and its rear garden were comprehensively redeveloped. The building was converted into three flats and extensively refurbished internally and externally, with timber sash windows reinstated across the south, east and north elevations. A new, three-storey apartment block fronting Bedford Road was constructed in the rear garden, designed in a loosely neo-Georgian style in keeping with number 120. A brick wall containing C19 brickwork along the property’s eastern boundary onto Bedford Road was replaced with a low brick wall with railings.
The greater part of the rear garden of number 122 was converted to use as a car park shared with the medical surgery at number 124 sometime in the later C20, while the front area has been infilled and concreted over, with the cills of the basement windows now sitting at ground level. In 2012, the sash windows of number 122, which were in a degraded state, were replaced with new timber sashes. Both properties have lost their historic boundary treatments, with number 122 having a timber picket fence onto Oxford Road and number 120 having a mid- to late-C20 brick boundary wall with railings.
Details
A pair of semi-detached villas, built between the 1820s and late 1830s. Number 120 was converted to office use in the 1980s; both properties have since been converted to flats.
MATERIALS AND PLAN: the building is of red brick laid in Flemish bond with stone or stucco dressings and a roof covering of slate. The later boundary wall is brick with mild steel railings. It is of two storeys plus basement.
EXTERIOR: the building is a semi-detached pair of villas of classical design with a symmetrical, principal frontage onto Oxford Road. It has a hipped roof, with a pitched element behind the large pediment on the parapet of the south elevation. Number 120 has a single, north-facing dormer window and number 122 has one north-facing and one south-facing dormer. A brick chimney stack sits centrally on the roof, where the party wall between the properties meets the ridge line.
The principal, southern elevation is four bays wide, with the two central bays projecting forward slightly with a narrow, central recess at ground and first floors. The roof is concealed behind a parapet with a large, plain triangular pediment over the two central bays, and there are plat bands at first-floor cill height and above the first-floor window heads. There are four, timber sash windows under gauged-brickwork heads on each floor. At basement level, the windows of number 120 are six-over-six sashes while at number 122 the windows are four-over-eight sashes. On the ground floor, the outer windows are six-over-six sashes and the inner windows are large, round-arched sashes with eight panes to the lower sash frame. On the first floor, all four windows are six-over-six sashes.
The main entrances to the properties are on the side (east and west) elevations, accessed via flights of stone-coped brick steps. Both doorways sit within round-arched recessed and carry sunburst fanlights. The door to number 120 is six-panelled with the top two panels glazed, while the door to number 122 is two-panelled, with a linenfold pattern on the lower panel. Adjoining the stairs of number 120 to the north are two later extensions: a two-storey toilet block containing two modern casements and a single-storey outbuilding at the north-east corner of the building. There is a single-storey brick outhouse attached to the side elevation of number 122, separate from the staircase. At the northern end of the two side elevations at second-floor level are two, six-over-six sash windows, the southern of the pair being slightly taller on both elevations.
The rear elevations of numbers 120 and 122 are largely the same. There are three sash windows and a modern door at basement level, two six-over-six sashes on the raised ground floor and a single six-over-six sash window at first-floor level. The outer window opening on the raised ground floor of number 122 has been reduced in size. There is a brick boundary wall of C19 brickwork between the rear gardens of the two properties.
