Cornmarket Street
Cornmarket | |
Oxford, England | |
Coordinates | 51°45′11″N 1°15′30″W / 51.7530°N 1.2584°W |
---|---|
North end | George Street |
Major junctions | Golden Cross, Clarendon Shopping Centre |
South end | Carfax Tower |
Other | |
Known for | Shopping |
Status | Pedestrian precinct |
Cornmarket Street (colloquially referred to as Cornmarket or historically The Corn) is a major shopping street and pedestrian precinct in Oxford, England that runs north to south between Magdalen Street and Carfax Tower.[1][2]
To the east is the Golden Cross arcade of small jewellery and craft shops in a courtyard, leading to the Covered Market. To the west is the indoor Clarendon Shopping Centre that connects in an L-shape to Queen Street.
Cornmarket was semi-pedestrianised and made a limited-access street in 1999. Cycling is allowed 6pm to 10am. In 2002, it was voted Britain's second worst street in a poll of listeners to the Today programme.[3] The rating was largely due to a failed attempt to repave the street in 2001. The granite setts, which had been laid extensively, cracked and the contractor went into liquidation. In 2003, it was repaved again and new benches installed, amidst reports of budgetary problems.
History of shops
26–28 Cornmarket on the corner of Ship Street is a 14th-century timber-framed building.[5] It is the surviving half of a building completed in about 1386 as the New Inn.[5] It belongs to Jesus College and was investigated and restored in 1983.[6]
Boswells of Oxford established what was the largest department store in Oxford at 50 Cornmarket Street in 1738. In 1928, the shop opened a new main entrance on Broad Street, but it still retained an entrance on Cornmarket Street. The store closed in 2020
The Victorian photographer Henry Taunt set up a shop at 33 Cornmarket Street in 1869. It was a small shop and in 1874 he moved to larger premises in Broad Street.
Clarendon House was designed by William Holford and built in 1956–57.[12] The façade is of coursed and squared rubble masonry with panels of blue-green slate, and Nikolaus Pevsner commended the building as tactful and elegant.[12] The building is now part of the Clarendon Shopping Centre.
St Michael at the North Gate
The tower of the Church of England parish church of St Michael at the North Gate is the oldest building in Oxford. It is Saxon and dates from about 1000–1050.[13] The church is named after the medieval gate of Oxford's city walls that spanned the north end of Cornmarket.
Near this church was the Bocardo Prison, where the Oxford Martyrs were imprisoned in 1555–56 before being burnt at the stake outside the town wall in what is now Broad Street nearby.
Adjoining streets
Gallery
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Cornmarket seen from the south (2004)
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The Lloyds Bank building on the corner of Cornmarket (left) and the High Street (right)
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The Saxon tower of St Michael at the North Gate in Cornmarket Street.
References
- ISBN 0-333-39917-X.
- ^ a b "Zacharias and Co. of Oxford". Archives Hub. UK: Jisc. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
- ^ "Britons name 'best and worst streets'". BBC. 20 September 2002. Retrieved 10 January 2008.
- ^ "26–27 Cornmarket Street: Pret à Manger". Oxford History. UK. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
- ^ a b Munby 1992, p. 245.
- ^ Munby 1992, p. 253.
- ISBN 0-333-39917-X.
- ^ a b Sharp 1948, p. 71.
- ^ Jope 1958, p. 20–22.
- ^ Jope 1958, p. 1.
- ^ Jope 1958, p. 4.
- ^ a b Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 312.
- ^ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 294.
Sources and further reading
- Oxoniensia. I. Oxford Architectural and Historical Society: 144–150.
- Sharp, Thomas(1948). Oxford Replanned. London: The Architectural Press.
- Jope, E. M. (1958). "The Clarendon Hotel Oxford. Part I. The Site". Oxoniensia. XXIII. Oxford Architectural and Historical Society: 1–83.
- Oxoniensia. XXIII. Oxford Architectural and Historical Society: 84–129.
- Oxoniensia. XXXVII. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society: 198–207.
- Sherwood, Jennifer; ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
- Sturdy, David; Munby, Julian (1985). "Early Domestic Sites in Oxford: Excavations in Cornmarket and Queen Street, 1959–1962". Oxoniensia. L. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society: 47–94.
- Munby, Julian (1992). "Zacharias's: a 14th Century Oxford New Inn and the Origins of the Medieval Urban Inn". Oxoniensia. LVII. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society: 245–309.
- Tyack, Geoffrey (1998). Oxford An Architectural Guide. Oxford & New York: ISBN 0-19-817423-3.