Summary
Three terraced houses, built during the 1820s, possibly by William Pratt Swallow.
Reasons for Designation
199-203 Oxford Road are 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.
199-203 Oxford Road are three terraced houses at the eastern end of a five-house terrace constructed in the 1820s during the westward expansion of Reading’s inner suburbs. The developer may have been William Pratt Swallow, a member of a prominent local family (Tyack, Bradley and Pevsner, p477; Conservation Area Appraisal, p59, p128). The terrace was originally named Sydney Terrace, along with the listed terraces at 149-169 Oxford Road (National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1113546), 171-177 Oxford Road (NHLE entry 1156337) and 187-193 Oxford Road (NHLE entry 1113547) to the east. There is a clear relationship between the construction of numbers 199-203 and the other houses in the terrace at 195 and 197. The front and rear elevations of numbers 199-203 are flush with those of 195 and 197 to the east, and the terrace shares a hipped roof, although there is a small step up from the roof of 197 to 199. However, numbers 195 and 197 are on a symmetrical plan and share few design elements with numbers 199-203, suggesting that the terrace was constructed in two phases.
The houses have largely remained in residential use during their history. In 1898, number 199 was in use as a school named Norfolk House High School, although this institution appears to have been short-lived, with no mention of the school having been found in local newspapers after 1899 (Reading Observer, 19 February 1898, p1; 25 February 1899, p1). Its history thereafter is unclear, although by the early 2000s the ground, first and second floors had been converted to offices. In around 2011, number 199 was converted into self-contained flats. Number 201 was a lodging house in the early 1890s and had been subdivided into flats by the 1980s (Reading Observer, 29 October 1892, p4; Reading Evening Post, 27 July 1984, p15). Number 203 appears to have remained in residential use until the mid-1960s, at which time it was partly used as a car sales office (Reading Evening Post, 20 October 1965, p14). The property was converted into self-contained flats in the early 1990s (Reading Evening Post, 3 June 1992, p20).
The 1879 OS town plan of Reading shows what may have been the original form of numbers 199-203 and their ancillary buildings. The three houses are on a rectangular plan with a small, rear outshot along their western boundary. In the rear garden of each property is a shallow, full-width building with a central covered way, and at the rear end of the gardens is a terrace of smaller buildings fronting onto a lane, today named Prospect Mews, running off of Prospect Street. A newspaper article of 1879 describes a ‘STABLE, COACH HOUSE, and LOFT’ to let at 199 Oxford Road, probably indicating the original use of these mews buildings (Berkshire Chronicle, 11 October 1879, p1).
Between 1909 and 1931, the houses were altered in matching fashion. The small, full-width buildings in the rear garden of each property were demolished, and each house was extended to the rear. These extensions, which are extant, are of an unusual form with a hipped roof that extends as a steep catslide south from the apex of the roof, creating a two-storey element nearer the main house and a one-storey element to the rear. In around 1960, a garage was built in the rear garden of number 203, with direct access from Prospect Street. This building was demolished by the early 2000s.
The front elevation of the terrace appears to have changed fairly little since construction. All houses retain a full set of sash windows, and numbers 201 and 203 appear to retain historic front doors. The rendered front boundary walls of the three properties are matching and may be original. There are later iron or steel railings around the front areas of the houses.
The mews houses at the end of the houses’ rear gardens appear to survive as separate properties but have been much altered externally through rendering and the insertion of new casement windows and new doors throughout in the late C20 or C21.
Details
Three terraced houses, built during the 1820s, possibly by William Pratt Swallow, member of a prominent local family, later partially converted to offices and flats, now flats throughout.
MATERIALS AND PLAN: the front elevation onto Oxford Road is stuccoed, while the remaining elevations are of red brick laid in Flemish bond and stretcher bond (the later extensions). The roof covering is slate and there are iron handrails and railings to the front steps and front basement areas. The houses are of three storeys plus basement.
EXTERIOR: each house has two bays onto Oxford Road, with matching one- to two-storey extensions to the rear. The front elevations of the houses are of matching design, being stuccoed with raised and incised detailing to the window and door surrounds and parapet. The main entrance is in the western bay of the raised ground floor and comprises a six-panelled door under a reticulated, sunburst fanlight, set within a round-arched recess with restrained detailing and accessed via a flight of stone steps with iron handrails. In the eastern bay is a round-headed sash window set within a round-arched recess with matching detailing to the door surround. Directly below is a sash window facing onto a front basement area.
On the first floor are two, square-headed sash windows (eight-over-eight glazing at number 199 and six-over-six at numbers 201 and 203), set within round-arched recesses with the common detailing pattern and incised tympana. There is a plat band running across the elevation at first-floor cill height. On the second floor are two, smaller sash windows (eight-over-eight glazing at numbers 199 and 203, six-over-six glazing at number 201), with the common detailing pattern to their square surrounds. Above the second-floor windows is a cornice parapet with incised panels aligning with the fenestration pattern of the terrace. The parapet conceals a hipped roof shared with the adjoining houses at numbers 195 and 197 Oxford Road (NHLE entry 1321911), with ridge chimney stacks on the party walls between each property.
The western elevation is of exposed brickwork with a rendered lower section and is partly concealed by a modern advertising billboard. The rear elevations of the main houses contain a single sash window on the ground, first and second floors and an additional casement window on the first floor. The three properties have matching rear extensions of an unusual form, with a two-storey element with a hipped and pitched roof adjoining the main house, and a single-storey element under a steep catslide formed from the southern slope of the hipped roof. The western elevation of the extension at number 203 fronts onto Prospect Street and contains timber casements on the ground and first floor.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: each property has a rendered boundary wall onto Oxford Road and on either side of their front gardens, which are uniformly paved and concreted. There is a brick wall along the boundary of the rear garden of number 203 which contains historic brickwork.
