Oxford Combined Court Centre

The building was commissioned by the then Sir William Morris (later created Viscount Nuffield) as a showroom for his motor vehicle manufacturing company, Morris Motors, which had been established in 1912. Morris initially displayed his new vehicles in an existing property at 36–37 Queen Street, but, in the early 1930s, he decided to erect a purpose-built showroom; the site he selected on the west side of St Aldate's had been occupied by a row of terraced houses. The new showroom was designed by Henry Smith in the neoclassical style, built in yellow ashlar stone and was completed in 1932. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of nine bays facing onto St Aldate's with the end pays…