Former Blackwells Music Shop and attached buildings for Wadham College to rear

This building comprises a former music shop and associated buildings constructed between 1969 and 1970 by Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia for Wadham College. It is located on Holywell Street and incorporates student accommodation to the rear.

The building has a complex layout. The ground floor and basement house the former music shop facing Holywell Street, with two storeys of student accommodation behind. The shop’s layout creates a terrace within the college gardens. Lightwells provide natural light to the basement of the shop and illuminate a sunken courtyard located behind the King's Arms public house (already listed).

The design showcases a free vernacular style. A long strip clerestory window features side-opening casements. The front has a two-stage roof, the lower ridge incorporating irregularly placed rooflights. Upper-floor windows are timber. The ground floor is set below a deep, fluted concrete lintel, flanked by concrete panels framing a floor-to-ceiling shop window with tinted glass. This window incorporates a basement lightwell and a steel security grill. Another lightwell to the rear of the shop enhances basement lighting and provides a strong visual element. Black steel windows and doors lead into a stone-paved courtyard. The rear elevation is rendered and displays Georgian detailing. A flat slab forms a terrace within Wadham College's grounds, overlooking the lightwell. Adjacent to the terrace is a block of accommodation, Holywell Court, which features a central sunken courtyard with stone paving. The elevation of Holywell Court is lined in lead, featuring heavy metal window sections and a repeated clerestory strip. Internally, Holywell Court has Douglas fir boarded ceilings and varnished oak doors. The bookshop incorporates oak bookshelves designed by the architects, along with York stone paving.

Blackwell's Music Shop opened on 9 November 1970, with Sir Adrian Boult as guest of honour. Gillespie, Kidd and Coia served as consultant architects to Wadham College, which owned the site. This is the most visible element of their extensive work for the college. The building demonstrates wit and imagination in responding to a constrained site of considerable international historic importance. It is a notable landmark on Holywell Street, featuring a compact and elegant terrace and courtyards to the rear, and represents a distinctive and unusual building from a remarkable architectural practice.