66, Banbury Road

House, now used as a language school. Built in 1869 with 20th-century additions, including a wing added to the left in 1961. Designed by architect Frederick Codd.

The building is constructed of yellow brick with a flush red band to the base and flush blue arches, with stone dressings throughout. The roof is plain tile with coped gables.

The main structure comprises two storeys, a semi-basement, and an attic, with a prominent four-storey tower to the left. The style is High Victorian Gothic, featuring arched stone windows with carved capitals. The tower incorporates a stone parapet with Gothic arcading and a square turret to the front left corner, with single and three-light windows set within stone arches on piers. The other front windows have arches resting on colonnettes. The central entrance bay displays a quatrefoil parapet, a gabled dormer, and a two-light window above a Gothic porch with an arcaded parapet supported on columns. Stone steps lead up to an arched doorway containing a 1990s plank door with scrolled hinges. The gable to the right features a two-light attic window above a canted bay, with quatrefoil and trefoil ornament to both parapet and window spandrels. Plate-glass sashes are used throughout, with internal security bars added to the ground floor in the 1990s.

A flat-roofed 20th-century extension extends to the right at basement level only. The 1961 wing set back to the left is rendered in a circa 1700 style with a hipped roof and sashes set within stone architrave surrounds. Additional weatherboarded extensions have been attached to the rear. None of the three 20th-century additions are of special architectural interest.

Interior features include a central staircase with a lower flight retaining its original twisted iron balustrade and newels, with a tiled dado painted with Ancient Egyptian scenes. The upper flight has a turned wooden balustrade. An entrance screen with leaded glazing survives. The remainder of the interior retains its original plan with restored ceiling cornices and replacement doors made in the original style. Most fireplaces have been removed apart from one on the first-floor rear, which is probably not original.

The house dates from the period when the North Oxford suburb was being developed from about 1860 on land owned by St. John's College. The College gradually released building plots on lease while maintaining strict control over development, ensuring standards of scale, distribution, front walls, railings, and rear gardens. All designs were vetted for quality. Frederick Codd was among the most prolific builders active in North Oxford at this date, and this house of 1869 represents one of many commissions he undertook in the area. The building was used by Wolsey Hall (a correspondence college) from 1930. It is now owned by Technos International College, with the original house occupied by The Oxford English Centre.