59, Banbury Road

This is a house built in 1869, designed by the architect Frederick Codd and constructed by M. Gray. It is located in the North Oxford suburb, which developed from around 1860 on land owned by St. John’s College. The college carefully managed the area's development, ensuring quality and appropriate provision of gardens and front walls. The house is now used as Hertford College Annex for student accommodation.

The house is built of red brick to the ground floor, with flush blue strings, and tile-hanging to the first floor, featuring bands of paler fish-scale tiles. The gables are half-timbered with angled brick infill and pierced ornamental bargeboards. The roof is steeply pitched slate, with brick stacks featuring offset caps and original vented pots.

The architectural style is Gothic-cum-Domestic Revival. The two-storey house, with a basement and attic, has a roughly square footprint with projections. The front has a wide gable to the right with a half-timbered canted bay window to the ground floor, and a three-light window to the first floor and a two-light window to the attic, all featuring plate glass sashes. A narrower left bay has a two-light first-floor window and a gabled dormer with an iron finial. A projecting gabled porch, featuring stone-coped buttresses, leads to an arched doorway of painted stone, adorned with colonnettes and richly carved foliage capitals. The doorway has arched plank door with elaborately scrolled strap hinges and an original handle, accessed by steps. The rear of the house has a gable to the left, arched ground-floor windows, a later conservatory projecting to the right, and an added narrow wing with a bay window in the angle.

Inside, the ground-floor rooms feature stone fireplaces with colonnettes; the rear room also has an added ornamental plaster ceiling. Original doors have chamfered plank panels, and the original open-well staircase has painted turned spindle balusters.

Number 59 Banbury Road is notable for its combination of continental, French, design elements with the developing Arts and Crafts movement, creating a substantial and distinctive house.