“I WAS interested to see the 1921 advert for the Metropole garage,” says Delia Kirk-Osborne, referring to the New Year’s Eve Looking Back, “as it was owned by Clarence Oxendale whose parents, John and Maria Oxendale, were my great aunt and uncle. They owned the shop which is now Barkers and lived at Kingsley House in South Parade.”
Indeed, John Oxendale founded a draper’s shop in Northallerton High Street in the 1870s, and in 1882 a young chap from East Cowton, William Barker, came to be his apprentice, lodging with the family in Kingsley House.
When John retired in 1907, his son, Clarence, and the former apprentice William jointly ran the drapery business until 1919, when William became its sole owner and began to develop it into the Barkers emporium that dominates the High Street today.
Clarence presumably preferred motors to drapers.
Clarence Oxendale's advert in the D&S Times of 100 years ago, when he was selling Manchester-made Belsize cars in Northallerton
He lived at Stormont House in South Parade – its name can still be seen in the glass of a fanlight and it is probably just a couple of doors away from Kingsley House.
“According to family history, Clarence used to come to Leyburn in a chauffeur-driven car,” says Delia. “He was a bit of a Romeo and wore a checked cap and a bow tie – he sounds a bit like toad of Toad Hall!”
Northallerton High Street in December 1980, with the splendid Durham House on the left occupied by Northallerton Hardware. The entrance to the Metropole garage can be seen to the right of Durham House
His Metropole garage was at the north end of the High Street in the outbuildings of one of Northallerton’s finest town houses, Durham House. Durham House – named because Northallerton was a “peculiar”, or outlier, of the Durham diocese – was built in the 1750s to the designs of John Carr, the finest Yorkshire architect of his day who later became the county’s bridgemaster. From Croft to Aysgarth, from Catterick to Reeth, from South Otterington to Skeeby, you will probably have driven over one of Carr’s 60-plus surviving bridges.
The Metropole garage was accessed by an alleyway that ran down the south side of Durham House, and Clarence’s cars would have been kept in the stable block, which was also designed by Carr. It is a listed building, and quite rightly so because it is one of Northallerton’s most quirky buildings.
John Carr, the bridgemaster for the north and west ridings of Yorkshire. He had to visit each bridge in the county each year, and so would be away from his York home for a week. He would take with him a pork pie neatly divided by his compass into seven
The first floor has a “recessed Diocletian panel”, according to the listed buildings schedule, which is a reference to the distinctive semi-circular window, which Carr must have borrowed from the Baths of Diocletian in Rome.
Whether Clarence knew he was driving beneath a Diocletian window as he took his Belsize vehicles out for a spin 100 years ago is unknown.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here