Gee's Restaurant

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

End of official list entry

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