No. 8: Bravissimo
No. 8 is the left-hand half of a building dating from around 1800. It is Grade II listed (ref. 1485/170).
In 1881 the cutler George J. Neill lived and worked on these premises. The next business to occupy the shop was Lindsey & Sons, whose name lived on here for a hundred years.
This was the third and last shop in Broad Street that was occupied by Blackwell’s Children’s Bookshop.
The area behind Nos. 8, 9, and 10 was a market garden from at least 1830 to 1846, managed by the nurseryman T. Fairbairn.
The 1881 census shows George J. Neill, described as a cutler employing two boys, living at No. 8 with his wife and daughter.
Mark John Lindsey (founder of the firm Lindsey & Sons) purchased Neill’s business in 1888 and opened the first branch outside London at 8 Broad Street on 20 September that year. The advertisement below is taken from Kelly’s Directory of 1908.
Mark Lindsey’s sons Jack and Charles continued the business, then their sons Ken and Rex, and finally Rex’s son John. Ken Lindsey retired in the late 1950s and the Oxford branch was acquired by the Isis Instrument Company (although it retained the name of Lindsey & Sons until the late 1970s).
Blackwell’s Children’s Bookshop, which started at No. 22 in 1950 and moved to No. 6 in 1974, ended up here at No. 8 from 1986 to 2002.
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Occupants of 8 Broad Street listed in directories |
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1852, 1861 |
Charles Thomas Hawkins, Accountant |
1866–1875 |
John Naylor Clayton, Solicitor |
1880–1887 |
George J. Neill |
1889–1976 |
Lindsey & Sons |
1980 |
Isis Instrument Co. (inc. Lindsey & Co.) |
1986–2002 |
Blackwell’s Children’s Bookshop |
2003–present |
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When the solicitors moved out in the late 1870s, other people rented the upstairs as follows:
- 1880: Professor Monier Williams, Treasurer and Secretary of the Indian Institute
- 1882–1895: Virgin & Bennett, surgeon dentists
- 1896–1906: Bennett & Knight, surgeon dentists
- 1901–1906:Virgin & Bennett, surgeon dentists
- 1907–1932: Bennett & Stroud, surgeon dentists
- 1934–1939: Alfred Charles Bennett, surgeon dentist
- 1940–1962: Ellmas Duplicator Co Ltd
- 1964–1976: Isis Instrument Co. Ltd. (which had taken over Lindsey & Co. in the late 1950s.