Oxford Prison Hotel, Oxford, England

September 7, 2006

   But the liberals haven’t taken over the asylum (yet). Instead, the Victorian gaol, built of a local stone called Headington Hard, is now a stylish – if somewhat quirky – four-star hotel. It’s the centrepiece of a £35 million ($66.2 million) redevelopment of the almost five-acre Oxford Castle complex, a heritage site of national importance which dates back to 1071 and right at the heart of this famous university town.
   Given the sensitive nature of the site, which contains Scheduled Ancient Monuments and several Listed (i.e. protected) buildings, the redevelopment was always high-profile … enough so Queen Elizabeth II officially opened it earlier this year.
   The project is the brainchild of Trevor Osborne, a hands-on and visionary developer whose firm is gaining a reputation for bringing difficult and exciting projects to fruition. As well as the transformation of the prison, used as a penitentiary until 1996, the project included new-build elements to create more than 32,000 ft² of cafes, bars and restaurants, an art gallery, residential apartments and several new public spaces.
   Extensive restoration and conservation works were also carried out to medieval buildings previously hidden behind the grim prison perimeter wall.
   For the public – visiting the Oxford Castle site for the first time in nearly 1,000 years – the most-immediate impression is of a feast of natural stone. It’s everywhere; apart from the Indian sandstone paving uniting both old and new buildings, all the stones are English limestones, chosen as close matches to the original Headington Hard.
   Most of the nearby university buildings in Oxford are built of Headington Stone but the last substantial working of the quarry produced very poor quality stone that deteriorated quickly. During the last round of restoration to those buildings 40 years ago, builders eschewed Headington for Clipsham Stone, from Lincolnshire; the limestone was again selected for the Oxford Castle project, specifically with the restoration of prison buildings.
   Restoration, plus some cleaning with the water-based JOS microabrasive process, was carried out by The London Stone Restoration Co. from Essex. The firm’s managing director, John Dodwell, says his initial analysis of the existing Headington Stone showed much of it needed to be replaced with Clipsham Stone.
   “It was in a friable state,” he says. “But the level of replacement we proposed was four or five times the client’s budget, so we had to look at simply making most of the stone safe and water-tight.”
   Consolidation of the stone using Remmers chemical products was considered. However, when samples were sent to Germany for analysis, Remmers officials ruled out the use of their method.
   “They said there would be no benefit, and their honesty and responsibility impressed me,” Dodwell says.
   The solution eventually agreed upon was to remove the surface of the stone. “Behind the friable surface it was as solid as a rock,” Dodwell says.
   The company’s contribution to the project also included creating the entrance to the hotel, adding new window or door openings, and salvaging stone from a long strip of wall that had to be demolished.
   Even after completing all this work, the prison’s appearance is largely unaltered; today’s hotel guests are greeted by the same austere look seen by thousands of wrongdoers as they arrived to begin their incarceration.
   When first opened to male inmates in 1842, the prison was considered a product of Victorian enlightenment, with three tiers of cells along each side of ‘A’ wing’s massive central gallery brightened by sunlight pouring through three-stories-tall casement windows. It was this once-revolutionary design that qualified parts of the prison for Britain’s Grade I Listed status for historic buildings, which in turn limited the amount of alteration open to Malmaison, the London-based hotel chain developing the lodging property.
   ‘A’ wing still resembles a cellblock, although with suicide nets removed, metal railings sandblasted and carpet along the tiered aisles, there’s something almost cathedral-like about the result as the light streams in from the huge windows at either end.
   Each bedroom has been created from two cells, with one extra cell converted into a contemporary stone-clad en-suite bathroom. All the plaster has been removed from the walls, exposing brick and stone.
   While ‘A’ Wing has been restored, ‘C’ Wing has been the subject of extensive rebuilding to replace a 1920s two-story extension. Here, brick-backed rubble walls in 1.25cm-thick Cotswold limestone rise above an existing stone wall, plus some 50 stone window surrounds in top-bed Bath Stone (10 of them on the radius). Bath Stone was also used for copings and string courses, and hydraulic lime mortars were used for both new stonework and consolidation of existing walls.
   Inside the two new floors of ‘C’ wing are yet more hotel bedrooms. Below, in the original story which houses hotel-service areas, brick vault arches have been retained, in keeping with this wing’s Grade I Listed status.
   Medusa Stonemasonry acted as principal stone contractors for this element (and the bulk) of the Oxford Castle project. Managing Director Nick Laurence describes the restoration of C Wing as “governed by the notion of least interference.
   “Often, when you start a project like this, you want to clean everything and bring it back to a new condition. The idea here was to let the difference be seen, rather than to recreate something afresh. Having stabilised the condition of the stone, we had to leave some of its distress visible.”
   Part of Medusa’s contract was to re-open old doors and windows, including those to a cell where (until the 1950s) condemned prisoners were hanged. When Laurence first looked around the site, the hanging scaffold was still in the room.
    “But worse still were the cells in the House of Correction (another building now transformed into hotel bedrooms),” he adds. “These rooms were tiled and had rings in the wall. I had an involuntary shiver when I went in there!”
   Another gruesome feature of the project was the discovery of about 70 skeletons, many of them apparently the remains of unfortunates thrown into the moat of the castle in medieval times before the prison was built. Most of these were discovered in the archaeological dig preceding the arrival of construction teams. But some were uncovered when Medusa began work on perhaps the most-prominent addition to the historic site: New Road Building.
   This striking construction contains a ground floor restaurant, modern hotel accommodation (for those guests reluctant to spend a night in the cells) and a rooftop garden. It links, via a second-floor glass tunnel, to another section of deluxe guest rooms in the restored Governor’s House, and from there links to the main area of the hotel.
   The new work was built to the design of London architects Dixon Jones and detailed stonework design was carried out for Medusa by WL Stone of Paignton in Devon, England. Project architect Michael Trigg says there were a number of constraints placed on the design due to the sensitive location.
   “We had to produce a building that was contextual, that answered the brief of the client for 14 prestige rooms, and that would not obscure the castle mound – a Scheduled Historic Monument – behind it,” he says.
   A line of 14 solid-stone arches announces both the front and back of the building. Built of 3,425 ft³ of Wood Bed Doulting Stone, the smallest stones weighed in at 500 pounds while the highest of the 96 voussoirs weighed a hefty 2.2 tons each. Each one was crane-fixed to the main structure.
   Supply of such large stones presented some concerns, says Medusa’s Laurence.
   “There are only two small Doulting quarries, both in Somerset,” he says. “The first had very few large stones available. At the second, the height of the bed and the size of the stone that we needed allowed little room for error. We ended up getting all we needed from the second, but it was a close call – the quarry now has no stone left.” (Stoke Ground base-bed Bath Stone was again chosen for copings.)
   Medusa also laid more than 21,500 ft² of Indian sandstone paving. This sandstone was laid 15mm in the hotel reception area and 2.5cm externally, on a 5cm screed. Originally, 6cm paving had been specified but – despite some skepticism – thinner stone was approved after Medusa proved its strength by getting Oxford firemen to drive a turntable fire engine over it.
   The same sandstone was used to build 11 external staircases which accommodate the many changes in level between the buildings and open areas.
   In May, Medusa completed work to the Café Screen restaurant. By infilling what used to be a roadway, this small building completes the façade that encircles the new development. “Café Screen was a design-and-build contract,” says Laurence. “We salvaged Headington Hard rubble from areas of the prison that had been demolished or restructured. This stone was good quality; it was only the later beds that produced soft stone. Doulting Stone quoins and large Stoke Ground roll-top copings were added and the new structure has an archway for limited vehicle access. It’s a sweet little building.”
   Separate to the hotel, and forming other sections of the encircling façade, are a group of buildings designed by Architects Design Partnership to replace the former ‘B’ wing. These overlook the new Castle Market Square and incorporate 33 apartments above restaurants and bars. The ashlar is 75mm Stoke Ground Bath Stone fixed by Stokes Masonry (Bath) Ltd. in what managing director Adrian Stokes describes as a “standard cladding job.” Standard, perhaps, but the price of the apartments is exceptional; ownership of a two-bedroom unit carries a £295,000 ($550,600) price tag.
   The entry fee to the new Oxford Preservation Trust Heritage Centre is a little more reasonable. The visitor center unveils the history of the castle and its original role as a seat of government and assize (criminal) court long before the stark perimeter wall blocked the view of its ancient buildings. Appropriately, the center incorporates the two oldest buildings – the 11th-century St. Georges Tower and Debtor’s Tower – which have been restored and structurally reinforced, and linked to a newly adapted ‘D’ wing.
   After two and a half years on site, Medusa finally left after the Heritage Centre opened in June, where the company have laid internal stone floors.
    “It’s been a fascinating project to work on,” says Laurence. “Trevor Osborne has succeeded in taking an intrinsically difficult site and creating something that really works.”
   Claire Santry is a free-lance journalist based in the United Kingdom, specializing in architecture and natural-stone coverage for several international publications.

Client/Developer: Trevor Osborne Property Group Ltd., London
Architects: Dixon Jones Ltd., Architects Design Partnership, London
Main Contractors: Mowlem plc, Isleworth, England; Medusa Stonemasonry Ltd., Bath, England
Specialist Stone Contractors: Stokes Masonry (Bath) Ltd., Bath, England; The London Stone Restoration Company Ltd., Essex, England.