Cornmarket: Clarendon Hotel
The Clarendon Hotel occupied the site of the present Clarendon Centre. It was an ancient coaching inn, known as the Star for at least 400 years. Its front was replaced in 1783.
In 1863 the Star was acquired by the Clarendon Hotel Company and renamed the Clarendon Hotel.
The above photograph was taken in 1906, and shows a group of young men (probably undergraduates of Pembroke College) about to embark on a journey in the rain. The photograph below shows a CTC (presumably Cyclists' Touring Club) dinner at the Clarendon on 7 November 1905. (Both photographs are in the possession of Derek Collier.)
The postcard below dates from much the same time.
The hotel later became part of the Trust House group, who produced the postcard shown below.
In 1939 the Clarendon was bought by Woolworth & Co. (who had already caused the destruction of the Roebuck Hotel in Cornmarket). In 1944 Lawrence Dale wrote in Towards a Plan for Oxford City, "When the Clarendon goes this superb street [Cornmarket] may be said to have been destroyed by inertia and intolerance more effectively than by high explosive." The Clarendon went in 1954 to make way for the new Woolworth's (which in turn became the present Littlewood's and part of the Clarendon Centre).
The Clarendon is on the left of the picture below.
On the right of the picture above is a roof emblazoned with the name BUOLS. John Buol had a hotel and restaurant at 21 Cornmarket Street from 1902 to 1919, wich he advertised as "the very finest dining hotel and restaurant in the city". It had a coffee and tea saloon and a dining room where dancing could take place, with another dining room on the second-floor.