7, Norham Gardens

House, now used as a school or college, built in 1862 and designed by William Wilkinson, the chief estate architect for St. John's College's North Oxford development. The house was originally named Park's End and built for Goldwin Smith, Professor of Modern History. It was extended in 1867 in matching style to provide additional accommodation for Max Müller, Professor of Philology, with a conservatory added at that time. Minor service extensions followed in 1895.

The building is constructed of red brick in English bond with stone window dressings and copings. It has steeply pitched slate roofs with brick stacks topped by corbelled stone caps. The house is designed in Tudor Gothic style and is roughly rectangular in plan.

The garden front faces south and rises to 2 storeys with an attic, displaying characteristic Gothic features including deeply chamfered mullion and transom windows, shallow pointed archways, and an embattled parapet on a zigzag table. Stone-coped gables with kneelers are decorated with carved foliage or gablets. Gothic rainwater heads are fitted throughout. The elevation includes a large dining room window to the left, an arched doorway below a stair window at the centre, and a slightly advanced gable to the right containing a rectangular ground-floor bay window with hipped stone coping. Beyond this to the right is a narrow link to a matching gable of 1867, with a canted wooden conservatory projecting to the side. The door features shouldered arches and twisted wrought iron bars to its glazed panels.

The west side features a gable with a cusped vent and a blind projection for a dining room alcove. A recessed centre behind the porch contains an upper window with blind stone tracery panels. The porch itself is gabled with a trefoil vent and arched doorway, flanked to the left by a triple window with three cusped arched lights containing stained glass. A blind single-storey bay rises to the left, with a taller service range behind. The service front to the north is plain, without arches.

The interior retains significant original features. The principal staircase has turned spindle balusters, while the extension staircase has matchstick balusters. Original shutters, skirtings, and doorcases with architrave shafts and chamfered panel doors survive. The main family rooms contain original stone fireplaces, arched and carved with zigzag or foliage ornament. The entrance hall fireplace bears the initials GS in its spandrels; the dining room has marble bosses; the former library displays paired marble colonnettes with rings and foliage capitals. The dining room also features an arched alcove and a ceiling cornice with a small quatrefoil frieze. Encaustic tiles are laid in the porch.

This was the first house built on the Norham Manor Estate, which developed from 1860 onwards on land owned by St. John's College. Norham Gardens was the first road laid out as part of the intended suburb, with the south side opening onto the University Parks. The College exercised strict control over the estate's development, vetting all designs for quality and ensuring adequate provision of front walls, railings, and rear gardens. The house served as a showpiece for the new estate and remains of considerable architectural importance for its domesticated Gothic style and its exceptionally complete original interior.