The Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane: London’s historic gem
The Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane was one of the last surviving galleried coaching inns in London.
The iconic structure stood near St Paul’s Cathedral between the 17th and late 19th centuries.
However, it was controversially demolished in 1876, making way for a range of new houses.
The Oxford Arms acted as the London terminus for stage coaches travelling west via Uxbridge.
Another coach operator (travelling between London and Oxford) was to be found at several London inns including the Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, every day of the week.
If you had large luggage it could not be transported on a stage coach.
There were operators called Carriers who picked up large items and transported them to many destinations.
In the case of the Oxford Arms, one Oxford (as in the City of Oxford) carrier operated from the Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, on Thursdays.
The inn's galleried design, a characteristic feature of coaching inns, was a sight to behold.
Rows of balconies overlooked a central courtyard, creating a picturesque and functional space where horses, carriages, and their passengers congregated.
The ‘galleried’ courtyards were built in this style because the galleries (with the balustrades) acted as corridors do today within a modern hotel.
Whether the Oxford Arms was so-named because it was a destination for transport plying between the City of Oxford and London is not known, but its name does seem rather a coincidence.
It is known that several inns called the White Horse were so-named because they were a stopping point on routes where the stage coach operators used only white horses.
Name association has often been a device used by operators to enable travellers to easily remember a boarding point.
The Oxford Arms was originally built in the seventeenth century, before being rebuilt and extended after the Great Fire of London.
For four days, the tragic fire raged relentlessly, spreading across neighbourhoods, decimating iconic buildings, including St. Paul's Cathedral, and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
The city's skyline was cloaked in billowing smoke, casting a pall over London as its residents grappled with the enormity of the disaster.
Following the re-build, Coaching inns lost all their customers within a few decades as the travelling public quickly switched to the railways.
The inns were large, too large to make a profit when nearly all the regulars were going elsewhere.
The inns closed down at an alarming rate and were sadly to be consigned to history.
The Oxford Arms was eventually demolished in 1876, making way for a range of new houses.
Final dismantling of the iconic structure was not without some controversy, in representing the passing of an era as it did.
While the outcry was not enough to save what had become an outmoded institution, its disappearance resulted in a change of public opinion.
The anger led indirectly to the foundation of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
The society was set up in 1877 by William Morris and other enthusiasts.
It was formed to record historic buildings threatened by development and made copies of its photographs available to subscribers.
Photographers Alfred and John Bool captured the photos in this blog post, of the Oxford Arms Inn for the Society.
In 1869, the ‘Book of Days’ had an entry for the Oxford Arms stating that ‘It is one of the best specimens of the old London inns remaining in the metropolis.
‘As you advance you observe a red brick pedimented facade of the time of Charles II, beneath which you enter the inn-yard, which has, on three of its sides, two stories of balustraded wooden galleries, with exterior staircases leading to the chambers on each floor: the fourth side being occupied by stabling, built against part of old London Wall.
‘The house was an inn with the sign of the Oxford Arms before the Great Fire, as appears by the following advertisement in the London Gazette for March, 1672-3, No. 762.’
Today, the only remaining part of an inn looking anything like this picture is to be found at the George Inn, Borough High Street, where one side of a large courtyard can still be seen.
The George Inn, built in 1676, is London's only surviving galleried inn.
The galleries which front the building were once common on inns, but many other surviving examples of coaching inns were lost during the Second World War.
The location of the George Inn was key to the success of the inn as a coaching inn, as one of many inns located in courtyards along the main road that led south from London Bridge.
However, the coming of the railways destroyed the coach and wagon business and Inns such as the George lost much of their business over a relatively short period of time.
Buildings and land that were originally part of the George were sold, and part was demolished or converted by the Great Northern Railway to be used as storage space.
The Great Northern Railway became the London and North Eastern Railway, and in 1937, the LNER sold the George to the National Trust, who still own the building.
The George is now much smaller than the original establishment, when horses needed to be stabled and coaches and wagons set out for the southern counties.
But it still shows what an inn would have looked like when horse drawn vehicles were the main mode of transport.
Today, there remain a significant number of historic features.
Within the galleried part of the building, the rear (south) wall has three chimney stacks, which despite having been rebuilt to varying degrees, are original to the building.
Each of the chimneys originally had a fireplace on each of the three principal floors.
The first and second floors largely preserve their original layout which would have comprised three bedrooms at each level, accessed independently from one another via the galleries.
The ground floor is divided into a number of connected bars - The Parliament Bar used to be a waiting room for passengers on coaches.
The Middle Bar was the Coffee Room, which was frequented by Charles Dickens.
In fact, the pub’s claim to fame is being mentioned in the Charles Dickens novel Little Dorrit, with the author himself having visited the site of the pub when it was still a coffee house.
It’s also been reported that William Shakespeare visited the pub too.
As the George Inn is now owned by the National Trust, the long term future looks assured.
If you’d like to visit this pub during your next trip to London, the address is: 75 Borough High St, London SE1 1NH.
If you enjoyed this blog post, please follow Exploring GB on Facebook for daily travel content and inspiration.
Don’t forget to check out our latest blog posts below.
Thank you for supporting Exploring GB.
