121, Banbury Road

House. 1903. Architect H.T. Hare.

Built in red brick in English bond with darker red flush quoins, pargetted details and stone dressings to the entrance. The building features a moulded wooden cornice below sprocketted eaves, a plain tile roof, and brick chimneys positioned to the left of centre and in pairs at either end.

The house is a double pile structure of circa 1660 style. It is two storeys with an attic and cellars, arranged in three bays. The front facade is symmetrical, with slightly advanced brick outer bays under shallow hips containing 4-light wooden casements with ovolo mouldings internally and gauged brick aprons. The ground-floor windows have moulded wooden cornices and transoms, with plain glazed lower metal casements and leaded upper lights. All first-floor and attic windows are leaded. Original downpipes with spirally fluted hoppers are flanked by later added pipes.

The centre bay features a 4-light dormer with central pediment, extended by 4 lights to the left, and a rendered upper storey colourwashed with pargetted swag and pilasters flanking four paired casements. The ground floor is partly ashlar with 3-light leaded stone mullion windows and a central stone doorcase with panelled pilasters, scrolled keyblock and open segmental pediment, with a part-glazed door.

The rear elevation has a lower pitched roof that is hipped and projects over three canted two-storey bays with pargetted panels between storeys, displaying blank heraldic shields and flanking drops. The leaded fenestration matches the front, with the right bays featuring central Ipswich arches over half-glazed doors. The left bay has a central brick pier between service windows. Flat-roofed dormers, canted to centre, are present. A circa 1950 two-storey wing projects to the right.

The interior includes a panelled entrance lobby with cloakroom and arch to hall, with a lintel on scroll brackets separating hall and stairs. The staircase has turned wooden balusters and a ramped handrail with gentle ascent. The dining room to the centre rear has a moulded plaster cornice and ceiling panel, with a fireplace featuring a heavy frieze of fluting and paterae over an opening with figured blue and white tiles. The drawing room to the southwest corner has ceiling ribs and a fireplace with mirror-panel frieze and original tiles displaying geometric margins and green and red intersection motifs. An elaborately moulded fireplace with eared architrave is present in the former morning room to the southeast. Original cupboards remain in the serving area. The first floor is partitioned.

The North Oxford suburb developed from about 1860 on land owned by St. John's College, which gradually made available building plots to lease whilst maintaining strict control over development scale, distribution, and design quality. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries, development extended further north including along Banbury Road, with neo-vernacular red brick and tile-hanging replacing the earlier preference for stock bricks and gothic detailing. H.T. Hare, the architect of this house, was also responsible for Oxford's new Town Hall. The building was extended circa 1950s for the Convent of Springfield St. Mary. It now serves as student accommodation for St. Clare's International College.

121 Banbury Road is distinguished from its nearby contemporaries by its sophisticated composition evoking a Restoration style, with a substantial hipped roof and rear window. The fine brick and window details, pargetting and good interior are consistent with its special architectural character.