The Steward's House

In the heart of Oxford University life

Here you are at the heart of Oxford University with privileged access to some of its hidden chambers and rooms. When the Oxford Union Society needed money to repair their first debating chamber (now its library) our founder asked if a place could be found for Landmarkers to stay in return for his help. This apartment is the result, a self-contained floor and a half in the former official residence of the Steward of the Union. The Steward was an important permanent figure who ran the Union facilities and kept order while generations of undergraduates came and went. His spacious house was added, with a new library, in 1910 to the design of W. E. Mills of Oxford. It is a thoroughly Edwardian affair of a kind and quality that we are pleased to look after; and our generously proportioned rooms, particularly the sitting-room, will give you a true impression of the Oxford of that day, while the vigorous and sometimes rather noisy activities of modern Oxford, and of the modern Union, take place around you. Oxford has more architectural pleasures and surprises than anywhere else in Britain, and The Steward’s House is conveniently only a very short walk from the train and bus stations.

Murals by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Union was formed as a debating society in 1823 to encourage free speech and speculation, and acquired its site at No.7 St Michael’s Street in 1852. By special arrangement you can attend the Union debates, in which speakers of international renown as well as current students often participate. In 1856 the Union’s first debating chamber, also used as a library, was built to the design of Benjamin Woodward, a disciple of Ruskin. He showed the nearly completed building to D. G. Rossetti and to William Morris, ‘a rather rough and unpolished youth’, and they offered to paint ‘figures of some kind’ in the gallery window bays during the Long Vacation, assisted by their friends, including Edward Burne-Jones. William Morris finished his bay first and began painting the roof. These faded scenes from Arthurian legend by famous painters in their youth, a wonderful possession for the Union, were duly brought back to life, and the building restored.

It so happened that in 1983 the Steward, Walter Perry, was about to retire and the Committee of the Oxford Union Society decided to take the opportunity to reorganise and reduce their staff. The old office of Steward was to be done away with and his work combined with other jobs for a non-resident House Manager. So the Steward’s House at the end of the north wing and with its own entrance on to St Michael’s Street was to fall empty. Part of it was already used for kitchens and staff offices, but there was no obvious future use for the bedrooms on the first floor and accordingly these were offered to the Trust, with part of the ground floor as well.

A lease on the flat was drawn up in 1985, plans were prepared, and work started in 1986.

After this the only work necessary was to give the interior and services a general overhaul, renewing plaster, installing heating and so on.

A large cupboard was removed on the landing, and the balustrade of the staircase was extended round to the wall. The smallest bedroom became the kitchen, the largest a sitting room. Otherwise everything was left as it was; the main rooms still have their cornices and fireplaces; the doors, complete with furniture, are all original, as is the mahogany flap-table on the landing. The bath has since been replaced.

All that remained to be decided was the decoration and furnishing, and here the choice was to go for a sense of donnish comfort; a don of the era before the First World War who had grown up under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, perhaps even been at the University with Morris and Burne-Jones and looked on at their work in the Debating Hall, and who still clung to their tastes and ideas. So the hall and stairs have William Morris’s Larkspur, the sitting room has Marigold, and the bedroom Sunflower.

William Gill, the Steward who first occupied these rooms, would perhaps have filled them with military trophies and mementos of India; a don would no doubt have covered the floor and the tables with books. You can fill them as you will, with your experience of Oxford.