A PUB REBORN

The beloved pub on St Giles is now clad in thick scaffold (right). Planning permission for the redevelopment of the site will be filed before the end of the year and the first pints will hopefully be poured in a restored pub in Spring 2027.

If that seems like a long time-line, vast amounts of archaeological and arboricultural and architectural work have already been done, and you only had to visit the public consultation held at St John’s College on November 21^st to realise just what a complex and semi-derelict site the pub has become over recent years.

This includes severe water ingress and the stone wall to the northern boundary almost black with rot and decay (below left) – such things are not put right quickly or simply, especially when the building is Grade II listed.

As such, and it’s the first big point to make, both Town and Gown will be huge beneficiaries of the Ellison Institute of Technology’s (EIT) large investment in the site, having acquired a long lease from the freeholder St John’s College a year ago.

But what exactly is this 17^th century pub?

Nick Wright and Harriet Pullman of Donald Insall Associates, explain that they have had to delve deep into the archives of University College, who owned the Eagle and Child from 1570 to 2003, before they sold to St John’s.

Nick says that the main point is that while Anthony Wood mentions an ‘Eagle and Child’ in c.1650, confirming its 17^th century roots, the building he was referring to wasn’t on the current site. In fact it was across a parish boundary (St Mary Magdalen), and much closer to Balliol College. It was situated on the other side of St Giles.

Nick says he did have a ‘eureka moment’ when he confirmed via archival evidence the creation of Wellington Place, just to the north of the current pub, at the same time as the Eagle and Child was built on its current site – around 1840. The two building projects would appear to have happened at once, which makes sense.

Diplomatically, he says, ‘We can speak of the Eagle and Child as a seventeenth century institution with a continuous history, but the actual building we have now is from the 1840s.’ Hopefully that will filter down into the what the tour guides say from the open-top bus, not that anyone in particular knew the history in detail before now.

But wait, it gets more complex by far.

The actual plot that the Ellison Institute of Technology has leased from St John’s includes not just the pub at 49 St Giles, but Numbers 50 and 51A (one building, sub-divided), previously Greens Café (left). This taller building has larger mullioned windows yet is roughly a century older than the pub despite the pub’s narrower, superficially ‘older’ leaded light windows. Go behind 50/51A and there’s another building that is another century older still, from the mid-1600s.

In sum, we have one site spanning nearly 400 years, but the pub is the youngest bit of it.

The whole site is complex and quite a bit larger than you might think, with room for a wonderful little courtroom garden behind the café that we think will be an instant hit. The plot extends a considerable way behind the St Giles frontage.

The vision of the new owners for the whole site is terrific for its quality and depth, broadly aligning with the core values of the Ellison Institute of Technology, which span health and medical science, food security and sustainable agriculture, climate and clean energy and government innovation in the era of AI.

One point to be made – it won’t be a hotel in any shape or form. There simply isn’t room. But unlike the Lamb & Flag opposite, recently re-opened to great acclaim, the Eagle and Child will go gangbusters on a proper dining experience using the long, tapering dining room behind the main pub. Perhaps just as exciting is the plan for a bakery and café at 50/51A, which we think will score London-quality sour dough bread, patisserie to rival Paris and barista magic to match the very best artisan coffee anywhere from the San Francisco to Melbourne.

At the front will be a familiar cosy pub serving local ales beloved of CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale). Above it will be meeting/seminar rooms for the Institute and administrative offices for the pub.

The consultation showed off a terrific 3-D architectural model that was so detailed it was hard not to believe it was already real (lead image and right).

At the end of the great process the city and University will be able to show case one of the purest yet also imaginative city centre developments imaginable and we think it will be of enduring attraction to alumni, visitors and staff, students and scholars. But there is now hard work ahead for an army of contractors.