35, Oxford Street

35 Oxford Street

This is a shop with offices above, built in 1909 for Richards and Co, jewellers. It is located on the south side of Oxford Street in Westminster. The building has undergone minor later alterations, including modern glazing and interior refurbishments at ground and first floor level which are not of special interest.

Exterior

Only one elevation is visible from the street, that to Oxford Street. It is expensively faced in white and peppermint-green faience. The architectural style is Flemish Mannerist, although the striped sun-burst pattern created through contrasting bands of faience hints at Art Nouveau influence. The single-bay frontage rises five storeys plus a basement. The ground floor has a wide shop front opening with modern glazing. The second floor also has a display window with modern glazing. The second and third floors contain a two-storey canted bay set into an arched recess, the shape of which, flaring at the top corners, is also Art Nouveau in character. The final storey has a tripartite window with quoined mullions. The elevation terminates in an elaborately ornamented gable containing a blind oeil-de-boeuf surrounded by scrolls and palm leaves, flanked by two urns.

Decoration is extensive throughout. Small urns rest on elaborate consoles on the first floor. Flanking the canted bay are cherubs' heads, wings and fruit garlands. The final storey has panels of peppermint faience and cartouches. Even the chimney is decorated with bands of coloured faience. Basic architectural details such as cornices, keystones above the arched recess and consoles on the canted bay are highly ornamental.

Interior

The basement, ground floor and first floor are entirely modern and have likely been refurbished many times since the Edwardian period. Above this, however, the arrangement of rooms is largely original. Two fireplaces and the staircase survive. The staircase has square newel posts and a moulded balustrade with square block details which mirror the quoined mullions of the final storey window. The fireplaces are typical Edwardian designs with Adam-style neo-classical surrounds, cast iron grates and tiled reveals, located in the front rooms of the third and fourth floors. Window fixtures, picture rails, cornices and skirting boards survive on all the upper floors, though most of the doors have been replaced.

History

Unusually for this street, 35 Oxford Street occupies the same narrow plot as earlier buildings on the site. Multiple plots were often bought up and redeveloped in this period, making the preservation of the historic frontage width almost as rare on Oxford Street as the survival of an original 18th-century building. The shop was built for the jewellers Richards and Co, who were occupants from 1910 along with Max Lilley, hairdresser. The jewellers are likely to have occupied the ground floor shop and the hairdressers the first floor. In 1915, the building was occupied by Richards and Co and a new hairdresser, Mrs Eliza Purchase, and Henry Emmanuel Levy & Co, manufacturers' agents, who probably rented office space in the upper floors.