72: Hoyle’s Games & Puzzles
No. 72 is the right half of the large green building shown in this picture. It was built in the late eighteenth century and is a Grade II listed building (ref. 1485/409).
This was a grocer’s shop from at least 1836 to 1870.
The grocer George Henry Warburton appears to have taken the shop over in 1836. At the time of the 1851 census, when he was aged 55, he was serving as Mayor of Oxford, while living over his shop with his wife, an assistant grocer, two servants, and a lodger. He was still there in 1861.
The 1881 census shows Henry Carr (a college servant) and his wife living over the shop, with a servant of their own.
In 1901 Francis Brooks and his wife lived over their confectioner’s shop.
This building was a sweet shop for a hundred years (from about 1870 until 1971). The picture below, taken from a Henry Taunt postcard, shows the shop in the 1920s, with advertisement for Fry's and Cadbury's chocolate.
| Occupiers of 72 High Street | |
| 1830–1861 | George
Henry Warburton Grocer &c. |
| 1866–1867 | W.
C. Williams Grocer & wine merchant |
| 1875–1876 | W.
F. Cross Wholesale confectioner Upstairs: Henry Carr, college servant (1875–1885); George Medcraft (1887–1892) |
| 1893–1915 | Mrs
Jane Brooks Confectioner Upstairs: university lodgings |
| 1915–1917 | Mrs
Mabel Partridge Confectioner |
| 1918–1922 | Mrs Sarah Walker, Confectioner (1918–1920) Harold W. Barnett, Confectioner (1921) Reginald L. Millard, Confectioner (1922) |
| 1923–1949 | G.
R. Cowley Confectioner & tobacconist Upstairs: Oxford Old Etonians Club (to 1931), then lodgings |
| 1954–1958 | Mrs
M. G. Warner Confectioner & tobacconist (1952–1956) E. C. Launchbury Confectioner & tobacconist (1958) |
| 1962–1971 | Mrs
E. Payne Confectioner, tobacconist, stationer, & general stores |
| 1972–1976 | Vacant |
| 1985 | Oxford
Blues Menswear |
| 1998 | Oxford
Heritage Ltd. Games & puzzles |
| 2000–present | Hoyle’s
Games & Puzzles (Magdalen College undergraduate rooms upstairs) |