92–94: Old Bank Hotel & Quod Restaurant
The main part of the Old Bank Hotel with its nine arches dates from the eighteenth century, but it was not all built at the same time: the four bays on the right (No. 93) were built in 1775 on the site of George Hall by the bankers William Fletcher and John Parsons, while the five bays on the left (No. 92) were added in 1798. The ground floor was altered around 1900. It was a bank from 1775 to 1998.
The adjoining timber-framed building to the right (No. 94), on the corner of Magpie Lane, is an early twentieth-century imitation of a sixteenth-century house: it was built in 1902 by Stephen Salter on the site of an earlier house. The picture on the left shows it shortly after it was built, when it was Joseph Vincent’s stationery shop.
No. 94 did not become part of the bank until about 1980.
At the time of the 1851 census John Parsons the banker lived over Nos. 92 and 93 with his wife, his son Herbert (also a banker), two daughters, and seven-year old son Henry. The family of six had eight general servants. He and his wife were still there in 1861, when just one of their sons, John, described as an assistant in the bank, lived with them; but they still had seven servants. No. 94 was occupied by the photographer John G. Miller and his family.
The 1881 census shows William Rogers Phillips, a bank cashier, living over No. 92 with his wife, three children, and two servants. At No. 93, only the servants were at home. Henry Druce, a solicitor, lived with his wife, niece, and one servant over No. 94, which was then a bookshop.
In 1901 Francis Williams, a bank cashier, lived over No. 92 with his wife, four children, and two servants; a banker’s clerk stayed with a housekeeper at No. 93; and a college servant, Thomas Coombes, lived over No. 94, which was then a bootmaker’s.
The Revd W. Tuckwell, in his Reminiscences of Oxford, describes the Old Bank back in the 1830s thus:
The Old Bank stood where now it stands, already some twenty years old. It was founded by two tradesmen – Thompson, a gunsmith, and Parsons, a draper, the latter brother to Dr. Parsons, Master of Balliol and Bishop of Peterborough. Passing gallantly through the money panic of 1825, when Walter Scott was ruined and half the banks in England broke, it rose into high repute, obtained the deposits of all the Colleges and retains probably most of them to-day under the grandsons of its founders.
| Occupiers of 92, 93 & 94 High Street | |||
| Date | 92 High Street | 93 High Street | 94 High Street |
| 1839 | Parsons, Thomson & Co. | John Parsons, Esq (Mrs Parsons from 1875) |
William Andrew Dicks Cabinet maker |
| 1846–1852+ | Robinson, Parsons, & Thomson Bankers |
Francis Macpherson Bookseller |
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| 1866–1883 | Parsons, Thompson, Parsons & Co Old Bank |
J. G. Miller Photographer & antiquarian [1866–1876] G. Shrimpton bookseller & stationer |
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| 1884–1902 | Parsons, Thomson & Co. Oxford Old Bank Barclay & Company Ltd (from 1901) |
Flack & Smith Boot makers |
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| 1904–c.1990 | Barclay & Company Ltd later Barclays Bank Ltd |
Joseph Vincent, Stationer (1904–7) Hall Bros, Tailors (1909–1931) ––– University lodging house (to 1943) then apparently private house |
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| c.1990–1998 | Barclays Bank PLC (Old Bank) | ||
| 1999–present | Old Bank Hotel and Quod Restaurant | ||