Fox House Fox House Antiques

This building, comprising numbers 30 and 32 Oxford Street in Woodstock, originally formed part of the Marlborough Arms Hotel and included Assembly Rooms. Number 30 dates to around 1750, while number 32 was built approximately 20 years later in 1770. The exterior is limestone ashlar, with the rear of number 32 partially weatherboarded. The roof is gabled stone slate, with a hipped section to the left and concrete tiles to the rear. Number 32 features a cupola with a lead roof, designed to light the staircase, and chimney stacks of stone finished in brick.

Number 30 is a three-storey building with a two-window front. A flat stone arch with wrought-iron brackets and a flat hood shelters a mid-19th century six-panelled door with two glazed panes. Raised storey bands define the facade; keyed stone lintels top mid-18th century six-pane sash windows with thick glazing bars, while the second floor has later six-pane sashes. A late 18th century dentilled wooden eaves cornice continues over the two-storey, single-bay front of number 32, which features a late 18th century stuccoed Venetian window above a late 18th century lunette, crowning a late 19th century wood-mullioned shop window. A rear extension to number 30 was added in 1985.

The interior of number 32 contains a roughly 1720 stone bolection-moulded fireplace in a room to the left, along with 18th century panelled doors set in panelled reveals, mid-18th century fireplaces on the first floor, and moulded cornices – 18th century to the left but 20th century elsewhere. A passage connects to a rear hall with a doorway to number 30 and a very fine, open-well staircase from around 1750, having turned balusters on a closed string, a bolection-moulded dado, and a dog-gate (moved to its current location in the 1970s). The top landing has bolection-moulded panelling and the staircase is lit by a fine lantern.

Number 30 was originally built as Assembly Rooms around 1770. The interior features decorative chandelier medallions, with ground-floor cornices displaying fluting, medallions, and delicate acanthus foliage. The 20th-century staircase, panelled dado, moulded cornice, and beams on the first floor are complemented by unusual late 18th century fireplaces with inner architraves dating from around 1840, and "duck's nest" grates. A thick sprung dancing floor was previously covered in chaff.