GEE'S RESTAURANT

GEE'S RESTAURANT, BANBURY ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1392914
Date first listed:: 07-Oct-2008
List Entry Name:: GEE'S RESTAURANT
Statutory Address:: GEE'S RESTAURANT, BANBURY ROAD

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1392914
Date first listed:: 07-Oct-2008
List Entry Name:: GEE'S RESTAURANT
Statutory Address 1:: GEE'S RESTAURANT, BANBURY ROAD

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: GEE'S RESTAURANT, BANBURY ROAD

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 51094 07553

Reasons for Designation

Gee's Restaurant was built c.1897 as a conservatory-style plant shop for a local nurseryman. As a large, late Victorian glasshouse of some elaboration it has significance as a building in its own right, and this significance is greatly enhanced because of its context, set among the houses and gardens which it was established to supply. Designated at grade II.

Details

612/0/10136 BANBURY ROAD 07-OCT-08 Gee's Restaurant

GV II Former plant shop, now restaurant. 1897 Architect not known. Built by R.D. Tucker of South Tottenham as a glazed conservatory with timber and metal frame. Extended to rear later in 1897 by Simms and Sons.

MATERIALS: Glass, on brick plinth. Brick and slate additions to rear.

PLAN: Rectangular, end on to street.

FAÇADE: Conservatory has canted end to street with scrolled wrought iron cresting containing initials G or GEE. Slender framing with large plate glass wall panels and tripartite opening top-lights. On brick plinth. Glazed roof with lead rolls to canted hip. Wrought iron weather vane at apex. Double doors to front end, under wooden pediment. Glazed pediment over doors in right side. Present main entrance via pedimented doorway set at angle to left side, opening into single storey rear brick build.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Decorative wrought iron railings, gates and archway to front boundary wall are essential to special interest.

HISTORY: The North Oxford suburb evolved from about 1860 on land owned by St. John's College, with the College gradually making available discreet sets of building plots to lease as it sought to ensure a firm financial future for its endowment. St. John's kept strict control of the development, both in terms of the scale of the houses, and their distribution. All designs were vetted for quality, and to ensure adequate provision of front walls and railings, and rear gardens. Gee's is a late Victorian conservatory-style building, built as a plant shop for local nurseryman John Gee of Blackhall Farm, to serve the new North Oxford suburb. Plans are dated 1897. The single storey brick additions to the rear began as an afterthought of the same year, but the greenhouses shown to the rear of the site no longer exist.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: For such an inherently slight building to survive in an urban context is rare. It significance is considerably enhanced because of its original context, as a nursery which supplied the surrounding suburb which from the outset was intended to be well supplied with gardens and trees. The building has great street presence, and contributes considerably to this part of Banbury Road. Its use as a restaurant has retained the open interior and distinctive functional character.

SOURCES: T. Hinchcliffe, North Oxford (1992); City Engineers' Archives O.S. 2871 and O.S. 2965. Initial plans show glass window panels as having single cross glazing bars.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 493678
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.