The miraculous preservation of Oxford’s ‘Painted Room’

Just over a week ago, on April 23^rd to be exact, I joined a jolly parade of University and City dignitaries robed in a fine collection of scarlet, fur and velvet and topped with an assortment of splendid hats. Led by a town crier and accompanied by pipe and drum, they processed from the Oxford Castle courtyard along Queen Street to Cornmarket. Where rather to the surprise of the large group of onlookers, they dived through the narrow doorway between Vodafone and Pret a Manger and disappeared up a steep staircase. As the sign above the door advertised the local Betfred, one could only assume they were eager to place a wager on the 1.30 race meeting at Newmarket.

In truth however, the bigwigs were here for something else entirely. For they were heading further up, to a room above the bookies, to celebrate the birthday of William Shakespeare. A brilliant but totally contrived event dreamed up by The Oxford Preservation Trust back in 1938 (dropped in the 1960’s and then reinvented in 2013) to mark the fact that 3 Cornmarket was the address where it is believed the great man stopped on his journey between London and Stratford. When the place was run as a tavern known as the Salutation (and later The Crown Tavern) by his old friend John Davenant. A great way and as good a date as any to keep the bard’s association with Oxford alive. Of which there is much to tell.  

But today I am interested in another tale. That of the extraordinary decorations painted directly on to the north and some of the east walls that are the backdrop to today’s show. A beautiful, intertwining lattice work of yellow ochre edged in black and white, each space adorned with groups of flowers and foliage on a background of orange. The story of ‘The Painted Room’ as it is now known, today hidden behind an 18^th century stucco front, is one that deserves to be more widely told. It’s a story of survival and serendipity, disguise and discovery, perseverance and preservation, played out in the very heart of the city.

We begin in the 1560’s when our building was owned by New College and run as a tavern by a local tailor called John Tattleton. Cornmarket was filled with inns (which sold beer and food) and taverns (selling only wine), the street a mass of gateways leading to courtyards of medieval timber framed houses with overhanging gables some with large cellars; a busy commercial thoroughfare bursting with gritty, noisy life. Painting your walls decoratively was a common practice especially in town taverns, and it is thought that Tattleton completed his set around this time, the most spectacular reserved for the guest bedroom on the third floor. 

But by the turn of the century fashions had changed. When John Davenant secured his licence at 3 Cornmarket to sell wine in 1603, he swapped the wall paintings for oak panelling, by now all the rage. It was this that almost certainly saved them. For so it stayed for over 300 years, the fabulous flora concealed beneath the boards and soon forgotten. 

Fast forward to 9 August 1927. The building is now owned by the City Council and tenanted by Messrs Hookham and Co, who ran it as a tailor shop. The proprietor was a Mr E.W. Attwood, and noticing that one of the panels in an upstairs bedroom was cracked, called in his handyman Harold Rogers to take it out for repair. It was then that a patch of colour was discovered, and Attwood recognising that this was something rather special called in the experts. On October 13, the entire Jacobean panelling was removed, revealing a 14^thcentury timber and plaster wall, 17 feet long by 8 feet high on to which the decoration of flowers had been directly painted. Staying pretty much intact since the time of Tattleton.

As luck would have it 1927 was also the year in which Oxford Preservation Trust (OPT) was founded, a charity to which we owe much that remains of the heritage and character of this great city. Attwood became one of its first trustees, (John Betjeman was secretary famously the 1940’s) and the Painted Room its offices, the panelling now put on sliders to protect the paintings and rolled back when entertaining special guests. For the City Council this worked well as it was the downstairs shopfront, at this time rented to the Lyons tea rooms, that was always going to be the bit that brought in the money.  And although OPT couldn’t save the back of the building from commercial development (there was another smaller painted wall here, now in the Museum of Oxford), they continued to keep an eye on the place even when they moved offices to Turn Again Lane and the upstairs rooms were leased to a series of small businesses including Greens Tutorials and up until 2011 Oxford Aunts. When a change of property long leaseholder, (complicated I know but bear with me) allowed OPT to take up the reigns once again, remove the panelling, consolidate the painted wall, and open it up as much as they are able to the public and for special events like Shakespeare’s Parade.

A few days later, OPT were kind enough to invite me back for a private view. To take a closer look. Without the crowds. Up the two steep flights of stairs I go, under low hanging beams and into the now quiet, open space. At one end two large windows look out on to the street, at the other an ancient fireplace with medieval herringbone brickwork, with the first three letters for Jesus in the Greek alphabet inscribed on the plaster above, dating back even further than our famous paintings, to the time of the Catholic Tudor Queen Mary. Stripped back from beneath layers of later decoration. On the south wall the old oak panelling remains, filled with framed pictures, newspaper cuttings and photographs of the room’s history. It’s all rather beguiling.

But it is the north wall that is the star of the show. Using earthy water-based ochres, brown, burnt orange, yellow, black and white, mined from local quarries, this is not the skilled work a member of the painter and decorator’s guild who would have had access to a broader palette and used string to measure the grids and spacing, but that of a local artisan. It’s all charmingly freehand, the odd mistake in the shading, brushstrokes and markings clearly visible, the pattern not uniform, continuing even over the timber upright and brace. Above there is a frieze of moral inscription written in English not Latin, there on show to anybody doubting that this house subscribed to the true Protestant faith. 

And then there are the plants and flowers, generously identified and decoded for me by Druce Curator of Oxford University Herbaria, Stephen Harris who knows about such things. He was able to place six different phytomorphs (representations of plants.) Here we have bunches of grapes (there was an extensive wine culture in the 16^th century and an obvious inclusion for the walls of a tavern), periwinkles (popular garden plants used for medicinal purposes), pansies (also common and a symbol of romance), snapdragons (used against bewitchment) and gentians (a charm against disease). There are also carnations (not passion flowers as previously thought, too early for them apparently) whose clove like scent was much sought after.

So much to take in. But such a treat to visit. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And so I take my leave, but before I head home I pop next door to the Golden Cross, the old inn buildings still huddled around an open courtyard and one of the few places left in the city (as opposed to the University) where you still get a feel of its medieval past. I’ve been told there are wall paintings in an upstairs extension of Pizza Express, and I wanted to see for myself. The waitress couldn’t have been more welcoming, waving me through to a back room where sure enough there they are. Sitting behind glass some in black and white, others in colour; cherubs, birds and animals alongside the trappings of a modern diner. 

It is all too overwhelming for one day. I must come back. Another adventure for another week methinks. 

You can find more information about OPT including how to become a member here.

For all information below on flower identification grateful thanks to Stephen Harris

Access to The Painted Room is up the narrow staircase to the south of Vodafone.

Some of the old timber framework alongside the narrow stairwell

The north wall. The timber uprights and brace clearly visible and included within the scheme of decoration. The black line on the floor under it is where the sliding paneling once stood.

Carnations or gillyflowers: Native and European species grown, they were very popular in 16th century gardens, and were thought to soothe the heart. This is the illustration on the walls that some people have interpreted as a passionflower. “If the room has anything to do with Shakespeare and the paintings are as old as we think, then they cannot be passionflowers” says Harris. “A realistic depiction of the passionflower was only available in Europe after 1614. Since 1580, the only passionflower images in circulation were the highly allegorical, Jesuit interpretations of the parts of the plant associated with passion of Christ.”

The bell like flowers at the top Stephen has not been able to identify with any certainty.

The plants are grouped in threes, probably to symbolise the Holy Trinity.

From left to right:

Top: grapes (probably introduced to the UK by the Romans. There is the obvious symbolism with the communion) and periwinkles (native to Europe and very popular as garden plants. They were often associated with the Virgin Mary. The herbalist John Gerard, in his ‘Herball’ published in 1597, states ‘juice given to drinke in red wine, stoppeth the laske and bloodie flixe, spetting of blood … It likewise stoppeth the inordinate course of the monthly sicknesse’.

Bottom row: pansies (commonly used as garden plants in the 16^th century) , snapdragons (or foxgloves) and gentians (these are native and valued as charms against disease and the stings and bites of venomous animals.)

Part of the English inscription which reads in full: And last of the rest be thou / gods servante for that hold i best / In the mornynge earlye / serve god Devoutlye / Fear god above allthynge

The medieval fireplace with the first three letters of Jesus above (using the Greek alphabet)

A drawing of Mr E.W. Attwood who uncovered The Painted Room

A cutting from September 1928 showing pictures of the room when the panelling was first taken down.

The old sliding panelling is preserved in a room upstairs.

Dignitaries raising a toast to Shakespeare with sack (a fortified wine, Falstaff style) in 1938

It’s less of a solemn occasion today. Photo ©Mark Bassett

The old entrance to Golden Cross would have been here in Tattleton’s day.

The first floor of the building on the left holds more wall paintings – an extension of Pizza Express.

Kept behind glass – these are probably even older than the ones next door.