Well, I have been away for a while and have therefore not been posting for the last couple of weeks – have you missed me?

Here is my take on one of my favourite buildings in Oxford – Nos 26 – 27 Cornmarket Street. If you are familiar with my blog then you may be aware that this is a building I’ve drawn and painted several times – and will probably continue to do so. Here is a link to one of my earlier posts for comparison and this is the image from that post…

If you care to browse through you will also find others.

One of the reasons I like these buildings – apart from them being old and half-timbered, is that this particular part of Oxford has its own very local history. By that I mean that at one time this building was a pub, as was the building opposite (The Plough) and it sits just inside the old city Northgate next to the Saxon Tower at St. Michael’s. You can probably imagine what it would have been like a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago or further back in history.

As for modern history, The Plough – opposite, has now re-opened as a pub/cafe/bar after being a gentlemen’s outfitter for many years, and there are tables and chairs now spreading out across the road in these Covid-19 times. No 27 is presently a Pret cafe and the Bureau de Change at No 26 has now closed. A nice touch is that the side of these buildings on Ship Street is now a favourite waiting spot for the various Deliveroo and other delivery riders- I’ve included one in my main heading image. This may be because it has been a favourite rat-run, with the riders getting off to walk their bikes across Cornmarket to St. Michael’s Street. That is all part of the general ebb and flow as some things develop and change – while some others stay pretty much the same.