Listed Building History: The Rookery (Ruskin Hall)
The Rookery is on the corner of Dunstan Road and Stoke Place in Old Headington. It was known as Charlton Lea from 1899 to 1933, and then reverted to its old name of the Rookery. It was renamed Ruskin Hall when it was bought by Ruskin College in 1946.
The house was built by the Finch family in about 1660, and the central range of the three-storey house dates from the sixteenth–seventeenth century; but in 1810 there were extensive alterations as well as additions on the north and west sides, and further large-scale improvements in 1910. It is built of ashlar and rubble, and has a modern brown-tiled roof and yellow brick stacks. The south elevation (shown more clearly in the photograph below) has five nineteenth-century sash windows in plain stone reveals, a stone porch, and a moulded parapet. The north wing has a modern modillioned eaves cornice, three stone mullioned windows of three and 4 four lights, and a rubble gable end. The interior, which includes two stone fireplaces, is described by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, page 186b.
Above: South elevation; below: West elevation. These two postcards date from around the late 1940s and are described as showing “The Rookery, Ruskin College, Oxford”.
Seventeenth century
In or about 1660 William Finch (died 1697) converted a sixteenth-century dwelling previously in peasant occupation into a larger house. This became known as the Rookery and, remained in the hands of his descendants until 1863.
He appears to have been the William Finch who was a cook of New College. William’s father Bartholomew Finch, also a New College cook and “Master of the Society of the Cooks of the University of Oxon”, lived in the parish of St Mary Magdalen (probably in Broad Street), where he paid tax on eight hearths in 1665. Anthony Wood, who paid a number of visits to “Bat Finch’s” premises, names his wife as Edith. Bartholomew Finch died at the age of 59 on 2 July 1668, and is buried in New College cloisters.
William Finch of The Rookery died without a male heir and was buried at St Andrew’s Church on 6 March 1697. His property appears to have gone down through the line of his nephew Abraham Finch, who was yet another cook and the eldest son of William’s brother Bartholomew Finch junior and his wife Elizabeth.
The family at this time had a house at 46 Broad Street (on the site of the New Bodleian Library), and they may have used the Rookery as their country retreat. Abraham was buried at St Mary Magdalen Church on 3 December 1703, and is described in the register as “worth £600”.
Eighteenth century
William Finch (1672–1752), the son of Abraham Finch, was baptised at Holywell Church on 1 November 1672.
On 26 November 1696 William married Mary Lewendon or Lewington (c.1674–1743) at Holywell Church, and they had two sons, who were baptised at St Andrew’s Church in Headington on the dates shown:
- Richard Finch (8 April 1700)
- Thomas Finch (8 November 1705).
William Finch’s elder son, Richard, died at the age of ten and was buried at St Mary Magdalen Church in Oxford on 7 July 1710.
In 1714 William Finch sold Kettell Hall and adjoining cottages in Broad Street to Trinity College.
The initials of William & Mary Finch (F WxM) followed by the year 1733 are on a stone at the Rookery (above), which has been moved to the north entrance of the walled garden. The meaning of the letters D+W and “M+N” at the top is unclear.
Mrs Mary Finch died on 8 August 1743 at the age of 69, and William himself died on 14 July 1752 at the age of 79. They are buried inside St Andrew’s Church, and there is a memorial to them (below) on its wall.
Thomas Finch (1705–1751) , the second and only surviving son of William and Mary, was matriculated at the age of 16 at the University of Oxford (Trinity College) on 23 February 1721/2. On 2 February 1727/8 Thomas Hearne wrote: “Mr Finch of Heddington hath a son, a young man, of Trinity College, by his Wife, a fine jolly handsome Woman, the Daughter of Mr. Lewington of Stanton St John’s”.
Thomas Finch gained his MA in 1728 and was Rector of Holton & Woodeaton from 1735 until his death. He and his wife Anne had five children baptised at Holton Church: Ann (1738, buried at Headington on 31 August 1749), Richard (1740), Elizabeth (1741), Jane (1745), and William (1748, buried at Headington on 16 July 1752).
The Revd Thomas Finch died at the age of 45, and was buried at St Andrew’s Church on 6 August 1751. His wife Anne Finch died at the age of 70 and was buried with him on 22 June 1782: in the announcement of her death in Jackson’s Oxford Journal she was described as the mother of an Oxford wine merchant.
Richard Finch the elder (1740–1802), Thomas’s elder son (and presumably the above-mentioned wine merchant) was the next owner of the Rookery. He was a friend of Parson Woodforde, who wrote in his diary on 14 July 1775, “We put about the wine pretty brisk it being Finch’s Birth Day to day, who is now 35 Years old”.
Three years later, on 8 September 1778, Richard Finch the elder married Laetitia White at Newington, and she gave birth to five children at the Rookery between 1779 and 1794, all of whom were baptised at St Andrew’s Church: Richard (27 December 1779), Laetitia (11 January 1781), Harriett (19 April 1787, married William Perry at St Andrew’s on 26 January 1809), Ann Elizabeth (31 October 1790), and George William (20 July 1794, buried at St Andrew’s on 15 May 1785).
Richard Finch the elder is regularly listed in Jackson’s Oxford Journal among those renewing their game licences. He died at the age of 61 and was buried in St Andrew’s churchyard on 28 December 1802.
Above: the crinkle-crankle wall of the Rookery’s walled garden, which dates from the eighteenth century
Nineteenth Century
Richard Finch the younger (1779–1851), the eldest son and only surviving male heir of Richard and Laetitia Finch, was matriculated at the University of Oxford (Trinity College) at the age of 18 on 15 January 1798. He gained his BA in 1802, and his father died at the end of that same year.
On 8 October 1803 Richard Finch the younger, described as being “of Headington”, married Clara Finch of Marcham, Berkshire, at Marcham. They do not appear to have had any children.
Under the Headington Enclosure Award of 1804 Richard Finch the younger was awarded over 30 acres in lieu of copyhold lands under Heddington Manor, while his widowed mother Mrs Letitia Finch was awarded 110 acres of land as a lessee of Magdalen College. These 140 acres included the site of the present house called Stoke on the other side of Stoke Place, and Highfield Farm on the other side of the London Road. Thus the lands of the Rookery stretched from north of the present northern bypass to as far south as Old Road.
Richard Finch partially rebuilt the Rookery in about 1810, probably around the time he married Clara. He lived there with his wife, and his widowed mother Laetitia and his unmarried sister of the same name.
By 1840, Richard Finch had plans to let out the Rookery, and the following advertisement rather surprisingly describes the Rookery as a “cottage”. He evidently still held the exact 140 acres of land that he and his mother had together been granted under the Headington Enclosure Award:
To be LET, at Michaelmas next,—A pleasant COTTAGE RESIDENCE, situated in a Paddock of 4 Acres, at Headington, near Oxford, with a green-house attached, opening into one of the parlours; a coach-house, 3-stall stable, pigsties, cow shed, and fowl-house. A gentleman may be accommodated with 140 more Acres.—Enquire of Mr. Finch, Headington. (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 11 July 1840)
He obviously failed to let the Rookery out in Michaelmas 1840, as the time of the 1841 census his wife Clara was at the Rookery with her mother-in-law (Mrs Laetitia Finch) and her two sisters-in-law (Miss Laetitia Finch and Mrs Harriet Perry). A young lady called Ann Talbot (20) was also in the house, and there were three servants: two female and one male. Richard himself appears to have been away on census night.
Richard’s mother Laetitia died at the advanced age of 96 and was buried in St Andrew’s churchyard on 16 March 1846.
In 1849 Richard Finch tried to let the house out again:
HEADINGTON, NEAR OXFORD,
Within half an hour’s drive of the Great Western Railway Station.
TO be LET, UNFURNISHED, for a term,—A neat comfortable RESIDENCE; consisting of two parlours (one opens into a green-house), two kitchens, a store room, and out-offices; three good bed rooms, and two smaller rooms, besides a servant’s room; a three-stall stable and coach-house, with about Three Acres and a half of good Grass Land, and a kitchen garden detached; it commands a beautiful view.—Immediate possession may be had.—Apply to Mr. Finch, Headington, near Oxford. (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 17 February 1849)
On 10 April 1849 Richard Finch’s wife Clara died at the age of 70, and a week later was buried in St Andrew’s churchyard. Later that year Richard Finch decided to sell the home that had been in his family for nearly two hundred years:
HEADINGTON, NEAR OXFORD.
TO be sold—a neat FREEHOLD RESIDENCE, with stabling and coach-house, and 3½ Acres of Meadow Land, and a small kitchen garden.—Apply to Mr. Finch, Headington. (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 10 November 1849)
The house did not sell, and so the Headington Rate-Book of December 1850 lists Richard Finch as the occupier as well as the owner of the Rookery: its rateable value was then £81 and its estimated extent two acres. But it may already have been empty, as the April 1851 census shows Richard (then a widower of 71), and his sister Laetitia (a spinster of 70) lodging with one servant at Miss Hanwell’s school in Old High Street. Later in 1851 the Rookery was let out to Colonel Champaigne.
On 14 July 1851, Richard Finch made a will leaving all his rents to his sister Laetitia and empowering his trustees to sell his property after her death; and just ten days later, on 24 July 1851, he died at the age of 71, outliving his mother by only five years.
Richard Finch was buried with his wife in the coped grave shown at the forefront of the photograph on the left. The inscriptions on the two surfaces read:
RICHARD FINCH
DIED JULY 24, 1851
AGED 72 YEARS
IN MEMORY
OF CLARA, WIFE OF
RICHARD FINCH, Gent.
WHO DIED APRIL 10, 1849
AGED 70 YEARS
The matching grave beside this one is unmarked: it is probably the grave of Richard’s parents (Richard & Laetitia) and his unmarried sister Laetitia.
Richard Finch’s sister Laetitia did not enjoy the rents for long: she died two and a half years later at the age of 73 and was buried in St Andrew’s churchyard on 20 January 1854.
The house was let out furnished between1854 and 1858 to the Revd Dr Arnold, and the sale of all its furniture took place at the end of 1858 after he moved out. The following advertisement appeared in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 23 October 1858:
“The Rookery”, Headington, near Oxford. All the valuable furniture of the mansion to be sold by Auction by I. & W. Fisher on Tuesday 26 October; comprising capital feather beds, hair and flock mattresses, palliasses, blankets, counterpanes, bedsteads, mahogany and painted chests of drawers, bureaus, wash stands, dressing tables and glasses, presses, wardrobes, and other furniture of the numerous chambers and dressing rooms; telescopic and other dining tables; mahogany sideboard, mahogany hair-seat chairs, sofa (in hair), pier glasses, carpets, druggets, hearth rugs, easy chairs (in morocco and chintz); window hangings and poles, capital cottage pianoforte, sofa (in chintz), mahogany leo, card, sofa, Pembroke, and work tables, bagatelle board, bookcases &c.; also the kitchen furniture, utensils, china, glass, earthenware; likewise a four-wheeled carriage, with patent axles.
From 1859 to 1863 the trustees of the Finch family rented out the Rookery to the Revd John William Augustus Taylor, who started a prep school there. In 1863 Taylor bought it outright, together with its land, which still included the whole of Highfield Farm (then known as Rookery Farm) on the other side of the London Road.
In 1883 Taylor retired, and moved into a new house he had built on his land across the lane, which he called Stoke. He put the Rookery and the meadows to the north up for sale, but kept the land of Highfield Farm on the other side of the London Road and gradually sold it off for development.
The new owner of the Rookery was Dr Walter Sumner Gibson, who lived in the house and continued to run the school there for another 14 years until 1897, when he decided to move to London to start a new school there.
The house with its four-acres of pleasure gardens and sixteen acres of “rich meadow land” (the present Ruskin fields, and more land stretching beyond the bypass) were included in the sale. The auction catalogue of 1897 described the house as “a highly desirable and attractive double-fronted commodious freehold family residence”, with fine views to Elsfield and Stow Wood, with attractive and well-timbered park-like grounds “tastefully laid out in lawns, flower-beds, and shrubbery walks”. The catalogue gives a good description of the house:
Ground floor: Hall with stove & gallery staircase; handsome dining room; drawing room; morning room; servants’ hall with stove, paved floor and good cupboards; large kitchen with shelving, dresser, double oven, kitchener, and hot plate rack; large scullery; double larder; china pantry; butler’s pantry with sink, pump, and good cupboards; two good box rooms; also boothouse, lavatory, and w.c.; billiard room; ante-room adjoining; and large room at present used as a gymnasium.
On half landing: Three bedrooms, two w.c.s, two large servants’ bedrooms, box room, and cupboards on landing
First floor: Three good bedrooms and dressing room, all with cupboards
On half landing: Two bedrooms and box room
Second floor: Four large bedrooms
Outbuildings: Two loose boxes; apple store (originally a three-stall stable, and easily convertible); double coachhouse, woodhouse, knifehouse, wood bin, w.c.s, and walled-in coal yard
Left: The Ruskin Fields, which now stop at the northern bypass but used to extend further north, are former pastureland belonging to previous owners of The Rookery and now owned by Ruskin College.
Twentieth Century
Following the 1897 sale, the Rookery once again became a private house. From 1899 to 1909 it was occupied by Mrs Bartholomew Price (nee Amy Eliza Cole, born in Exeter in c.1835). She had married the Revd Dr Bartholomew Price, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford, in 1857, and until 1892 they lived at Middleton Hall (11 St Giles) with their five daughters. (For Bartholomew Price, see ODNB; he was the subject of Lewis Carroll’s “Twinkle twinkle little bat” poem recited by the Mad Hatter.)
The family moved to Pembroke College in 1892 when Professor Price was appointed Master there. After his death on 29 December 1898 his family had to move out of the Master’s Lodgings, and Mrs Price and those of her daughters who were still unmarried moved up to the Rookery.
In 1899 there was a prolepsis of the future of the Rookery when Mrs Price invited women who were in the Amalgamated Protective and Provident Society of Women Working in Trades in Oxford there. The following extract is from Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 9 September 1899:
Mrs Price renamed her house Charlton House (or Charlton Lea), probably in memory of her husband, whose birthplace was Charlton Kings in Gloucestershire. Although it is shown with its new name in Kelly’s Directory from 1900 onwards and on the 1921 OS map of Headington, it was still referred to as The Rookery in other contexts, including the above article.
Only Mrs Price’s butler, cook, housemaid, and kitchenmaid were at home in the Rookery at the time of the 1901 census.
Mrs Price died at the Rookery at the age of 74 on 14 October 1909 and was buried at Holywell Cemetery with her husband.
The Rookery was then bought by Dr John Massie (1842–1925) (see ODNB), who retained the name of Charlton Lea for the house. Massie, who had been Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Spring Hill College, in 1886 had moved with his college (which was to become Mansfield College) from Birmingham to Oxford, and until 1910 had lived at 101 Banbury Road.
An article in the Oxford Chronicle for 14 October 1910 (p. 9) describes the extensive improvements Massie made to the house, including electric lighting. The architects were Messrs W. W. & G. A. Harrison of Turl Street, the builders Messrs Knowles & Son of Holywell Street, and the consulting engineers Messrs Best & Son. The 1911 census shows John Massie (68) in retirement at Charlton Lea with his wife Edith (62) and seven indoor servants. He also employed twelve outdoor staff.
John Massie died at 84 Harley Street and was buried in Headington Cemetery on 14 November 1925. His wife died at Charlton Lea (The Rookery) at the age of 84 and was buried with him on 15 February 1933.
The Massies had no children, and in 1933 the Colburn building firm of Swindon bought the house and its extensive grounds for development, but Oxford City Council refused to grant them planning permission.
In 1934 the house and lands were bought by Sir Michael Sadler (1861–1943) (see ODNB) when he retired as Master of University College, and he restored its original name of the Rookery. The northern bypass was built through its fields in 1935. Sadler died at the Rookery on 14 October 1943.
Thomas Harvey Sadleir [sic], Sir Michael’s only son, inherited the Rookery and on 15 May 1944 sold it to Aubrey Edward Gurden, who had co-founded the Oliver & Gurden bakery.
During the Second World War the house’s grounds were requisitioned by the War Office. The American army camped there in Nissen huts and later used the house as a convalescent home.
In 1946 Gurden let out the whole Rookery estate to Ruskin College, which was outgrowing its cramped Walton Street premises, and on 10 October 1947 sold it to the college (less a chunk of land which was retained for a new house at 4 Dunstan Road, which was confusingly given the Rookery’s old name of Charlton Lea).
The Rookery became known as Ruskin Hall, an educational establishment very different from the “young noblemen’s school” that occupied the building in 1869: for Ruskin College is committed to equal opportunities and has educated adult students from the working class since 1899.
In 1965 the college also bought Stoke on the other side of Stoke Place.
Twenty-first century
Ruskin College is currently preparing to move in its entirety up to Headington site in the autumn of 2012:
Above: Postcard showing Ruskin’s former Common Room in the Rookery
Above: Postcard showing Ruskin’s former library in the Rookery
Listed Building references: Rookery: 1485/47; Kitchen garden wall: 1485/47A
Archaeological report of excavations at Ruskin College, Old Headington in 2008
