10–12: L. K. Bennett & Pizza Hut
Nos. 10 and 11 comprise the pink building on the left of the above picture. At ground-floor level, No. 10 has been sacrificed to afford an entrance to the newer section of the market.
No. 12 (the building on the right) is at ground-floor level simply the entrance to Pizza Hut, which spreads across the basement of all three shops.
Thus the only retail shop remaining here at ground-floor level is No. 11 in the middle, and this spreads across all three shops on the first floor.
Nos. 10–12 are jointly Grade II listed (ref. 1485/310). Nos. 10 and 11 have an eighteenth-century façade on a fifteenth-century building, while No. 12 on the right was extensively altered in the years 1700 to 1704.
In 1770 Nos. 10 and 11 High Street were sold for £375 to William Jackson, the proprietor of Jackson’s Oxford Journal, by James Darker of London. No. 12 was then the King’s Head Tavern, which had been the headquarters of the Constitutional Club, whose members were responsible for the riots of 1715 when the Quaker Meeting House and Baptist Chapel were destroyed. In 1771Jackson bought No. 12 from James Adams for £650, and used it as his printing house.
On William Jackson’s death in 1794, his sister inherited Nos. 10–12 and immediately conveyed them to Mary Jones, an employee of her brother who had inherited over 200 acres of land in Headington, including Headington House. On her death in 1815 she in turn left them to her niece and her husband, Elizabeth and Edward Latimer.
The 1851 census shows Henry Ladd, the stationer at No. 10, as a single man of 26 living over the shop with a general servant.
Edward Latimer ran his wine merchant’s business from No. 11 in the early nineteenth century, and “Latimer’s immortal tun” is praised in the poem Brasenose Ale. In 1835 an Act for enlarging the covered market on its west side was passed, so that the market now extends across the rear of these premises. A hole was punched through the western side of No. 10 to create a new entrance to the market (Market Avenue No. 1). The wine business at No. 11 was taken over by Edward Latimer’s son Frederic in the mid-1840s: he lived in Headington, and the 1851 census shows Robert Braine, a wine merchant who must have managed the business for him, living over the premises with his family.
Samuel Evans, the draper at No. 12, lived over the shop at the time of the 1851 census with his wife and two young children. Also living upstairs were eight draper’s assistants, plus two servants.
Nos. 10–12 were already the City Drapery Stores in 1905 when Charles Webber bought them from Edward Beaumont junior. He soon acquired adjoining shops on both sides, so that in its heyday Webber’s had thirteen bays facing the High Street and included Market Avenues 1, 2, and 3. The firm was bought by Hide & Co. in 1952, and closed in October 1971.
| Occupiers of 10–12 High Street | |||
| Date | 10 High Street | 11 High Street | 12 High Street |
| 1846–1876 | Frederick Trash Stationer (1846) — Henry Ladd Bookseller & stationer (1852–1861) — B. R. Baker Bookseller & stationer (1866–67) — W. N. Webster Bookseller, stationer & printer (1869) — Henry Harris Fancy warehouse (1871–1876) |
Frederic
Latimer & Co. Wine merchants |
Morley
& Co. later Morley & Evans later Evans & Co. Drapers & mercers |
| 1880–1882 | Vacant
1880 Part of E. Beaumont at No. 9 in 1882 |
Mrs Latimer Wine & spirit merchant in 1880 Market Wine & Spirit Vaults (J. Long) in 1882 |
The
City Drapery Stores Carpet & linoleum warehouse |
| 1884–1905 | City Drapery Stores | ||
| 1905–1971 | Webbers
(Oxford) Ltd. Drapers, milliners, furriers, costumiers, outfitters, & house furnishers (Eventually extended westwards to No. 9 and eastwards to Nos. 13, 14 & 15) | ||
| 1973 | Costa International Menswear (also at 9 and 13) | ||
| 1975–1980+ | John Menzies, Stationer | ||
| By 1993–2007 | Boots
Optician |
Pizzaland, later Pizza Hut |
|
| 2008–present | L. K. Bennett | ||