1, NORTHGATE STREET

Details

811/1/172 NORTHGATE STREET 30-JUN-10 (West side) 1

GV II A small townhouse, built in the later C17 or early C18.

MATERIALS: The house is constructed from red brick laid in Flemish bond, set on a rendered plinth, under plain clay tiled roofs.

PLAN: The building is double-depth in plan, with rooms to either side of a central entrance hall and stair to the rear.

EXTERIOR: The house is of three bays and two storeys with attic. The main elevation has six-over-six hornless sash windows with stone cills set in plain reveals with flat, rubbed-brick voussoirs with projecting keystones; there is a stone plat band between the ground and first floors. Those windows to the ground floor are set to either side of a central entrance doorway, which has a six-panelled door under a cobweb fanlight. The attics house two gabled dormers with multi-paned timber casements. The exterior of the north return wall dates from the mid-C20 when the adjacent house in the row was demolished. The rear elevation is plain, with C20 replacement windows.

INTERIOR: The interior has principal rooms to either side of the central hall; a glazed archway leads from the hall to the rear hall, which has a closed-string dog-leg stair with square section balusters, those to the lower flight having barley-twist details. One ground-floor room retains an original fireplace, flanked by cupboards of the C18; the other principal room has an imported C19 grey marble fireplace. The rear kitchen has exposed chamfered beams. One first-floor room retains a C18 moulded fire surround. The attic casement windows have wrought-iron handles and catches.

HISTORY: No. 1 Northgate Street was built at the very end of the C17 or early in the C18, following the almost complete destruction of the buildings in the area by the Great Fire of Warwick in 1694. The house was a family home, occupied at various times by tradesmen including an ironmonger, a boot and shoemaker and a clerk. During the 1870s, it was used as a private lodging house, and in 1904, it is recorded in use as apartments, though there does not appear to have been any internal alteration to the layout at this time. No. 1 Northgate Street was purchased in August 1937 by Warwickshire County Council for the sum of £700, with a sitting tenant. The house was one of a row of similar dwellings lying at the southern end of Northgate Street; its neighbours, Nos. 3, 5 and 7 Northgate Street, were demolished in the 1960s and 1950s respectively, to allow for extensions to the Judges' Lodging adjacent to the Courts further to the north, leaving No. 1 Northgate Street the last survivor of the group. In the later C20 it was adopted for use as office space by the County Council, in which use it remained at the time of inspection (2010).

SOURCES: A History of the County of Warwick (Victoria County History): Volume 8: The City of Coventry and Borough of Warwick (1969) Warwickshire County Council: Shire Hall, Warwick: A Conservation Statement Version 1.0 (May 2007) Warwickshire County Council: Shire Hall, Warwick: Heritage Audit of Warwickshire County Council Offices, Council Chamber and Members' Area (July 2009)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: No. 1 Northgate Street, a small townhouse built in the late C17 or early C18, is designated at Grade II, for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: it is a classical townhouse of the late C17 or early C18 which demonstrates some architectural pretension * Intactness: the building is largely unaltered * Group value: the house forms part of a group with the large number of other listed buildings lining both sides of Northgate Street, and the adjacent 2 Old Square.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

307586

Legacy System:

LBS

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