Holywell Music Room

HOLYWELL STREET 1. 1485 (North Side) No 34 (Holywell Music Room) SP 5106 NE 6/195 12.1.54. II* GV 2. Begun in 1742 to the design of Rev Dr Thomas Camplin, Vice Principal of St Edmund Hall and Archdeacon of Taunton, and opened in 1748 at the cost of £1,263 lOs Od. 1-storeyed rubble 65 ft x 32 ft x 30 ft high with an apselike North end and a Welsh slate roof. The South front is stuccoed brick, lies back from the street about 38 ft and has a projecting rectangular shaped ground floor with 2 semi-circular arched windows and a stone band and a moulded cornice; the 1st floor has 3 C18 sash windows in moulded pediment in which is a blind circular lunette. On the East side there are 3 semi-circular arched windows. History. Probably one of the earliest buildings in Europe erected specially for musical performances. (See Peshall's Edition of Wood's Ancient and Present State of City of Oxford (1773), 247-8 0xf Hist Soc XV (1889), 247-8; Proc Oxf Architect and Hist Soc V, 208; for drawing of exterior made by J C Buckler in 1812, p Bodl M S Don a 3 II, 85.

All the listed buildings on the North Side form a group.

Listing NGR: SP5164406554