No. 52: St Giles’ Café
The present house at No. 52 was built in 1868. It is a Grade II listed building (ref. 1485/836).
Jackson's Oxford Journal reported in 1868: “In St Giles's a neat house has been built in place of the quaint old tenement occupied by Mrs. Whitbread. Of this Mr. J. Curtis, Pembroke-street, was the builder, the plans being furnished by Mr. Tanner, a gentleman in the Oxford office of Mr. Buckeridge.”
The 1772 survey shows the frontage of the earlier house on this narrow site as being exactly 4 yards: it was then in the occupation of Mr Green junior. .Mrs Mary Whitbread ran a registry office for servants in this old house: at the time of the 1861 census, she was a widow of 56 and lived here with her son Alfred, a 17-year-old lawyer's office clerk.
The first occupant of the present building was the Polish watchmaker & jeweller, Israel Levi, whose former shop at 66 St Giles' Street was demolished in 1868, the same year that this shop was built. The 1881 census shows him still working here at the age of 65, and living with his wife and a young servant.
| Occupants of 52 St Giles' Street
listed in censuses and directories (grey background = earlier building) |
|
| 1839 | Elizabeth Howell Baby linen warehouse, and Milliner & dressmaker |
| 1841–6 | Thomas Bennett Bootmaker |
| 1861–7 | Mrs Whitbread Register Office |
| 1869–90 | Israel Maurice Levi Watch maker & jeweller |
| 1891 | Mrs Goward Milliner |
| 1893–4 | Mrs Mary Dawson Binsey Dairy Supply |
| 1895 | F. Hobday Tobacconist |
| 1896–1912 | Frank Matthews Tobacconist (Mrs Matthews from 1911) |
| 1913–22 | Colin Lunn Cigar merchant & tobacconist |
| 1923–36 | Wingate Melson Ltd Opticians |
| 1937–present | St Giles Café |