List entry for 16 St Andrew's Road: 1369427

16 St Andrew’s Road is the last in a row of houses dating from around 1700. Until 1959 its address was 16 Church Street, Old Headington.

It is a more humble home than its neighbours, and is built of random rubble (now painted white). The building was described thus by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, published in 1939:

(266) House, No. 16 Church Street, 20 yards W. of (265), is of two storeys with attics; the walls are of rubble and the roofs are tiled. It was built in the 17th century and contains an original stone fireplace with a four-centred head and some exposed framing. Condition—Good.

This house was held under the Manor of Heddington (not to be confused with the Manor of Headington) and the Court Rolls of that manor describe it as “one messuage, one yard, one garden, and common of pasture for two heifers and a bullock and ten sheep”.

In 1760 this copyhold property was inherited by Richard Drewitt from his father of the same name.

In 1789 Richard Drewitt junior left it in turn to his daughter Mrs Ann Trafford, wife of the sawyer William Trafford, for her lifetime, after which it was to go to his grandson, William Trafford.

It was then owned by various members of the Pates family from 1820 to 1881:

• In 1820 the house was sold to Joseph Pates, the baker at 1 & 2 North Place for £170. Joseph remained in North Place with his wife Sarah, and by 1834 his sister Mrs Phillips moved in here. She is probably the Elizabeth Pates who married William Phillips at St Andrew's Church on 24 May 1821.
• Joseph Pates died in 1834, and in his will (transcription here) he left 16 St Andrew's Road to his widow Mrs Sarah Pates née Coombs and then “after the deth of my wife Sarah Pates for my dauter Ann Pates to have the house as that my sister Phillips lives in now as is eld under Edward Latemer Esq [the Lord of the Manor of Heddington]”. The 1841 census shows Joseph's widow Mrs Sarah Pates living here in St Andrew’s Road (then called Church Road) as a widow with her two youngest daughters Ann and Emma.
• Mrs Sarah Pates, the owner of the house, died in 1848, and the house then passed to her daughter Ann Pates (b.1822) according to the terms of her father's will, but for 29 years the estate rested in the hands of Joseph’s trustees, who were James Coombs (the brother of Joseph's wife) and Thomas Burrows of Southfield Farm.

The Headington Rent-Book of 1850 records that the house was now duly owned according to Joseph's will by his daughter Miss Ann Pates, but she lived in London and rented it out, and the rent book shows that it was divided into two tenements rented by Mr Williams and Mr Freeman. The 1851 census accordingly shows a butcher called Joseph Williams living in one part with his wife, three children, and a servant, and Nathaniel Freeman, a dealer of minerals, living on his own in the other part.

In 1861 it looks as though the house was occupied by families called Sawyer and Jeffs.

At the time of the 1871 census Miss Pates confusingly rented each section of the house to a man called George Louch, each of whom was an agricultural labourer born in Headington. The first George Louch (48) lived in what appears to be the larger part with his wife Martha and their eight children and his brother-in-law John Green, and the second George Louch (57) lived in the other part with his wife Harriet and their lodger. The first George Louch was still living in the house at the time of the 1881 census with his wife Martha, who was now a laundress, and four of their children, but the other part was now occupied by the baker William Coppock (58) and his charwoman wife Elizabeth and their two sons. .

In 1877 the second of Joseph’s trustees died, and Miss Ann Pates, who had inherited 16 St Andrew's Road after her mother's death in 1848, acquired absolute title to the copyhold of this house, and in 1881 she sold it for £100 to a college servant, Henry Carr, of 72 High Street, Oxford.

In 1887 the new owner Henry Carr enfranchised the house (i.e. acquired its freehold from the Manor of Heddington), at which time its two sections were occupied by George Louch again and by Ernest Phillips.

Ernest Phillips is still listed in the street, probably at this house, in the 1891 census: he was a bricklayer’s labourer aged 35 and lived here with his wife and two children and their two lodgers.

In Within Living Memory, Gertie Hedges mentions that her family lived in this house, and the 1901 census duly shows Gertrude Hedges (5) living here with her father Lloyd Hedges (31), who was a cowman on a farm, her mother Agnes, and her brother Edwin (7).

The 1921 census shows the builder's labourer George Jacob (44) living here with his wife Clara and their eight children.

There was a succession of short-stay occupants in the 1930s:

• Miss Bateman (1930,)
• Horace Victor Howkins (1933)
• Miss Bedford Bateman, M.A. (1935)
• Geoffrey Barraclough, Fellow of Merton College (1936).

The widow Mrs C. B. Marsh lived here from 1938 to 1952, and the 1939 Register shows Gertrude Marsh (born 1866) living here with Celia Marsh (born 1902) and Basil Marsh (born 1907), plus a domestic servant.

There was another succession of short-stay occupants listed in Kelly's Directory between 1954 and 1968:

• Flight-Lieutenant John Green (1954–1956)
• Vacant (1958)
• Geoffrey W. Dodd (1960 to 1962)
• George McMahon (1964)
• Charles Donaldson (1966–1968)
• Robin C. Dean (1972–1973).