Golden Cross, Oxford

For other places with the same name, see Gold Cross.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Golden Cross, Oxford" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

Shopping mall in Oxford, England

Golden Cross

The Golden Cross from the Cornmarket Street entrance

Location| Oxford, England
Coordinates| 51°45′09″N 1°15′27″W﻿ / ﻿51.7524°N 1.2575°W﻿ / 51.7524; -1.2575
Opening date| 1987
Architect| Dunthorne Parker Architects
Golden Cross courtyard in 1907, from the Cornmarket entrance.

Golden Cross (also previously known as the Cross Inn[1]) is a shopping arcade at 5 Cornmarket Street in central Oxford, England.[2] The original structure on the site dates from 1193, when it was called Maugershall after the then owner, and consisted of shops with an inn on the upper storeys. The building structures now on the site date from the late 15th century, when they were used as a traditional coaching inn, as is clear from its layout and historical documents.[3] The collection of historic buildings in the Golden Cross courtyard to the east off Cornmarket Street, one of Oxford's main shopping streets. Golden Cross is now used as Oxford's branch of Pizza Express. The courtyard is used as a thoroughfare which leads to the historic Covered Market and has been redeveloped as a small shopping centre, with upmarket shops, a branch of iGlasses Opticians, Holland and Barrett and a Chinese herbalist.

There is strong but circumstantial evidence to link the buildings with William Shakespeare, given his player's company's known performances in Oxford and the route from Stratford-on-Avon to London passing through Oxford. It is believed that Hamlet was performed in the inn courtyard and a signature that is reputedly his can be seen on the wall in the bursar's office on the first floor of the adjacent building occupied by New College, Oxford.

The buildings were comprehensively restored in 1986/87 by Cordwell Property and Mal Parker of Dunthorne Parker Architects when the buildings were converted into a variety of retail uses, and a new structure carefully integrated into the existing building ranges to allow a sensitively constructed direct route through to the adjacent Covered Market. This covered market was constructed in 1774 so as to relocate the stalls previously pitched on the Cornmarket. but no direct access had been possible from the main retail street of Cornmarket up until the completion of this development.

The poet Alexander Pope stayed here in 1735. The 15th century buildings have original timberwork and there are various examples of early wall paintings and hand painted wallpaper on the upper floors of the building, still easily accessible and viewable via the pizza restaurant that currently occupies the upper floors of the north range of buildings.

## See also[edit]

* Clarendon Shopping Centre
* Westgate Shopping Centre

## References[edit]

1. ^ "5 Cornmarket (former Golden Cross Inn)". www.oxfordhistory.org.uk. UK: Oxford History. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
2. ^ Hibbert, Christopher, ed. (1988). "Golden Cross". The Encyclopaedia of Oxford. Macmillan. pp. 155–156. ISBN 0-333-39917-X.
3. ^ Pantin, W. A.; Rouse, E. Clive (1955). "The Golden Cross, Oxford" (PDF). Oxoniensia. Vol. XX. Oxford Architectural & Historical Society/Ashmolean Museum. pp. 46–89.

* v
* t
* e

Shopping centres in South East England

Berkshire|

* Broad Street Mall (Reading)
* The Oracle (Reading)
* Parkway Newbury

Buckinghamshire|

* Eden Shopping Centre (High Wycombe)
* Friars Square (Aylesbury)
* Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre

East Sussex|

* Churchill Square (Brighton)
* Priory Meadow Shopping Centre (Hastings)

Hampshire|

* Cascades Shopping Centre (Portsmouth)
* Chesapeake Mill (Wickham)
* Fareham Shopping Centre
* Festival Place {Basingstoke)
* Gunwharf Quays (Portsmouth)
* The Malls, Basingstoke
* Marlands Shopping Centre (Southampton)
* Bridge Shopping Centre (Portsmouth)
* Westquay (Southampton)

Kent|

* Ashford Designer Outlet
* Bluewater (Stone)
* County Square (Ashford)
* Fremlin Walk (Maidstone)
* The Mall Maidstone
* Pentagon Shopping Centre (Chatham)
* Royal Victoria Place (Tunbridge Wells)
* Westwood Cross (Thanet)
* Whitefriars Shopping Centre (Canterbury)

Oxfordshire|

* Bicester Avenue
* Bicester Village
* Castle Quay Shopping Centre (Banbury)
* Clarendon Shopping Centre (Oxford)
* Templars Square (Oxford)
* Westgate Oxford

Surrey|

* The Ashley Centre (Epsom)
* The Belfry (Redhill)
* The Peacocks (Woking)

This Oxfordshire location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

|

* v
* t
* e

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template