61: Magdalen Gate House
Despite the fact that it actually faces Rose Lane and overlooks the Botanic Garden, Magdalen Gate House, which was built in 1802, was deemed to be in the High Street and is today numbered 61. Its attractive Georgian façade (left) faces east, giving visitors approaching Oxford the benefit of its front view; but all that most people notice is its rather dark and unwelcoming side (right). It is owned and used by Magdalen College, and is a Grade II* listed building (ref. 1485/401). Its walls and gate piers are Grade II listed (ref. 1485/401A).
From the 1830s to 1898 (when the number 60 was reassigned to the end house on the north side of the road), Magdalen Gate House was divided into two and the sections were numbered 60 and 61 High Street.
The house was built in 1802 for Thomas Roberson (Oxford’s Town Clerk from 1825 to 1839). He went bankrupt in 1812, and as a result the property was sold to the Revd John Cooke, the President of Corpus Christi College. He gave the property to Dr George Williams (Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Sherardian Professor of Botany from 1796 to 1834) on 1 January 1816.
The Revd W. Tuckwell, recalling the 1820s in his Reminiscences of Oxford, wrote, “. . . the nondescript residence built by Daubeny had not then risen, and the Professor, Dr Williams, lived in the large house facing Rose Lane.”
Dr Williams, who died on 17 January 1834, bequeathed this house to the Loring family, who appear to have divided it into two sections (originally numbered 60 and 61) and let it out. On 30 November 1859 Magdalen College bought it from Lady Loring and the Revd H. N. Loring and gave it the name of Magdalen Gate House, and continued to let it for many years.
At the time of the 1851 census, the main part of the house was occupied by the Revd Vaughan Thomas, aged 74, the Vicar of Yarnton, and his wife (ooked after by a butler, cook, housemaid, and footman).
In 1861, the main part of the house was occupied by the physician Richard Giles and his servants.
In 1851 Mrs Elizabeth Penson, aged 68, described as a "House Proprietor" lived in the smaller part of the house with her daughter Elizabeth and one servant, and they were both still living there thirty years later in 1881.
In 1898 Magdalen Gate House appears to have been turned back into one house, numbered 61, and in 1901 it was occupied by Charles Cannon, Secretary to the Delegates of the Oxford University Press, and his wife, three daughters, and six servants.
The Oxford University Radio Society met in the Magdalen Gate House in the 1960s.
| Occupants of 61 High Street | ||
| Date | 60 High Street Magdalen Gate House |
61 High Street |
| By 1846–1852+ | Revd Vaughan Thomas, BD Vicar of Yarnton |
Mrs Elizabeth
Penson (to 1892) |
| 1866–1876 | R. Giles, M.D.* | |
| 1882–1887 | S. D. Darbishire, M.D. | |
| 1877–1893 | Edward Chapman, MA, FLS, JP | |
| 1894 | Edward Chapman, MA, FLS, JP | Office of the Oxford Educational Bureaux |
| 1895–1897 | Charles Cannan MA Tutor of Trinity College |
Miss Quilter |
| 1898–1920 | Charles Cannan MA Tutor and junior Bursar of Trinity College |
|
| 1921–1947 | Stephen Grosvenor Lee,
MA Fellow, tutor in Modern History, and Senior Dean of Arts, Magdalen College |
|
| 1949–present | Horace Bradley (in 1949
only) thereafter Magdalen College annexe |
|
* Listed in the 1871 directory as living at No. 61, suggesting that Nos. 60 and 61 were indeed part of the same house.