Red Lion Square in Oxford

[ELParry]

Does anyone know please if Red Lion Square in Oxford was a slum area in the 1860s?
Tks

[Geoffers]

Red Lion Square, off Gloucester Street. Closely built dwellings, but not a slum in the same sense that I've been led to believe the Paradise was.

The Red Lion PH from which the square was named was one of half a dozen pubs around Gloucester Green where there was a weekly cattle market, so it would have been busy, noisy and quite fragrant at times. The Red Lion was well known to actors of the Playhouse and New Theatre and gained a reputation for providing the fastest pint available to actors between turns on the stage.

Red Lion Square might be described as providing urban 'working class' accomodation in the mid-19th century - think along the lines of a cobbled street overlooked by quite tall buildings, making the area seem quite dark. With the cattle market and theatres and pubs, nearby it would have been a smelly, busy place, with the odd lady of the night working the streets nearby.

Geoffers

[ELParry]

Thanks very much Geoffers - that is really useful.