A N O T E O N T H E TA P E S T R Y R O O M 30 THOMPSON’S LANE This rather grand College house has many fine architectural mouldings and decorative features. On the first floor, Room 13 is impressive, with its richly decorated fireplacesurround, niches and friezes. Opposite, Room 14, which also looks out onto Thompson’s Lane, is even more remarkable. It is a bed-sitting room, not particularly large, having been intended as a bedroom, but of spectacular, though often mysterious, interest to its occupants, on account of the beautifully painted panels all round it, frescoes of tapestry designs, protected by huge sheets of perspex. Distorted reflections are complemented by mirrored alcoves beneath carved wooden canopies. How does the College come to have such an extraordinary room available to students?
30 Thompson’s Lane with the annexe at No 31 on left (photo: Matt Moon)
Thompson’s Lane in the eighteenth century was dominated by a brewhouse estate. The large brewery warehouse (c 1840) is the only surviving part: now ‘the Glassworks gym, studio and spa’. John Purchas, the owner of the brewery, built No 29 for himself and then upgraded by building No 30 in the 1790s. These houses were sold in 1803 to Richard Foster, who undertook extensive remodelling in about 1820, which has led to confusion over their exact date. The annexe, No 31, was known as ‘the clerk’s house’. The much-smaller adjoining houses, flanking those of the owners or directors of the attached commercial business, were intended for employees or servants (compare Wentworth House and its related Chesterton Road cottages). The big houses, and much of the surrounding land, were purchased in 1859 by Mr Swann Hurrell, a successful iron-master, related 58
