Summary
Early-C18 house with a shop to the ground floor and accommodation above accessed from a rear stair turret. C15 rear range with a C16 addition. C19, C20, and C21 alterations.
Reasons for Designation
14 Westgate Street, Gloucester, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for the rare survival of its early-C17 decorative plasterwork scheme that is of exceptional quality;
* for its retention of a significant proportion of its historic fabric including C15 roof trusses, C17 plasterwork, and C18 joinery, including its early-C18 open-well staircase;
* for the legibility of the building’s historic evolution from the C15 onwards in its planform and surviving architectural fabric.
Historic interest:
* for its contribution to our understanding of early-C17 decorative plasterwork;
* for its contribution to our understanding of urban building traditions and changes in architectural fashions over time.
History
The site of 14 Westgate Street is recorded in both the ‘The Terrier of Llanthony Priory’s Houses and Lands of Gloucester’ (1443) and the ‘Rental of the Borough of Gloucester’ (1455). The former was a survey of property owned by the priory and details the plot as comprising a corner plot tenement fronting Westgate Street. It also describes the building to the rear, then in the ownership of Gloucester Abbey, as a tenement that formerly functioned as two shops; this building appears to survive as the two-storey, three-bay rear range, with C15 roof trusses visible to the first floor. The truncation of the principal rafters to the north-west elevation suggests that the building originally extended further into St John’s Lane (formerly known as Grase Lane) and probably formed a first-floor jetty; the north-west wall appears to have been rebuilt in brick in the C19. The central trusses are open, with arch braces and pendants to the collar, indicating that there was an open hall. The introduction of a chimney stack, floors and ceilings in the C16 provided opportunities for ornament in a now smokeless room, and in the early C17 an elaborate plasterwork scheme was added to the principal first-floor room. There is a smaller first-floor room of one bay at right-angles to the principle range which is probably of C16 date.
The tenement to the front of the plot was rebuilt as a three-storey building in the early C18, and had a rear stair turret that also provided access to the rear range, indicating the amalgamation of the buildings by this time. The stair turret was extended in the C19 to provide access to the attic of the C18 building, and a roof dormer was inserted into the hipped roof to the front.
The building was subject to repairs in the C21 as part of the High Street Heritage Action Zone.
Details
Early-C18 house with a shop to the ground floor and accommodation above accessed from a rear stair turret. C15 rear range with a C16 addition. C19, C20, and C21 alterations.
MATERIALS: the early-C18 house is built of brick with stone quoins to the principal elevation. The rear range is of timber-framed construction although the elevations have been substantially rebuilt in brick in the C19. The hipped roofs to the C18 range are covered in slate tiles. The gabled roofs to the rear range are covered in plain clay tiles.
PLAN: C18 range to the front and three-bay C15 range to the rear. The C18 range has been opened-up at ground floor, and a short-flight of stairs to the rear (to the left of a truncated chimney stack) provide access to the principal first-floor room of the rear range, with a smaller, single-bay room at right angles. The ground floor of the rear range forms a separate shop unit accessed from the side lane. To the rear, between the C18 house and the south-east and south-west elevations of the rear range is an early-C18 stair turret.
EXTERIOR: a three-storey principal elevation of two bays. To the ground floor is a C21 shopfront. The upper floors are of red brick with raised and chamfered stone quoins and a timber crowning modillion cornice with short returns to either side. To the first and second storey are two mid-C19, two-over-two sash windows (replacing C18 sashes) within original window openings of segmental-arched heads with triple-raised keystones, moulded stone architraves, and projecting stone sills on moulded brackets. To the hipped roof is a central C19 hipped roof dormer with a casement window.
The three-storey side (north-west) elevation has a first-floor lateral stack to the right, and to the left a staggered arrangement of a window to each of the three floors. The ground-floor C20 window is beneath a C19 segmental-arched brick head. There are a pair of C18-style six-over-six sash windows to the first floor and to the second floor is a C20 cross window that probably replaces an C18 window of the same type. To the second floor of the gabled rear elevation is an C18 six-over-six sash window and a C20 inserted square window to the attic. The rendered stair turret to the left has a hipped roof, with an additional hipped roof extension to attic level.
The side wall of the two-storey rear range was rebuilt in the C19. The three windows and door to the ground floor are C20; to the first floor are a pair of C19 tripartite windows beneath cambered heads. The C19 rear wall forms a parapet wall; behind are the gabled roofs of the C15 and C16 range.
INTERIOR: the C15 roof structure of the rear range is visible beneath the C17 plastered ceiling as arch-braced collars and ovolo-moulded principal rafters to the south-east side; the north-west side has been truncated. The end trusses are closed and include the tie beam, and there is one surviving wind braces to the north-east corner of the side wall. The two intermediate trusses have a timber pendant to the centre of the collar. The early-C17 plasterwork scheme decorates the ceiling, the skeiling (the sloped section of the underside of the roof between the purlin and the wall plate), the overmantel, and between the tie beam and the collar of the closed end trusses. The ceiling comprises an enriched broad rib design of three geometric symmetrical sections. The skeiling has a foliated arcade of four-centred arches supported on Ionic columns, with a depiction of a different stylised plant beneath each arch, including the Tudor rose, thistle, oak, and fleur de lys. The closed trusses to either end utilise a different spiral design of plant stems, foliage, and strapwork. There is evidence in the surviving plasterwork that this scheme extended to the north-west skeiling before it was truncated. The overmantel of the inserted stack has a central wreath that surrounds a coat of arms, and is flanked by half figures (Terms) emerging from columns, with additional decoration including swags and fruit. Small-square panelling has been added to the wall to the right of the chimney stack, and to the north-east end of the principal room and the adjacent smaller room. The tongue and groove panelling and the additional panelling to the smaller room is C20. The roof trusses to the adjacent, single-bay room, comprise queen strut collar and tie beam end trusses with wind braces to the bay. To the south-east wall intermediate upright posts and infill panels are visible.
The early C18 open-well staircase to the rear has Doric column newel posts, a closed string, turned balusters with tapered columns, and a ramped handrail. From the second floor to the attic the handrail is tenoned into plain square newel posts, rather than ramped over, and the turned balusters have longer unturned blocks, suggesting that it was added in the C19. To the upper floors of the C18 range are moulded cornices, C18 joinery including window and door architrave and window shutters, and some fireplace surrounds. The second floor is accessed from the landing via a round-archway supported on Tuscan pilasters. To the first-floor landing are two blocked doorways with C18 architraves that formerly provided access to the first floor of the C15 and C16 rear range.
Both ranges have cellars. There is evidence for a medieval cellar beneath the C18 cellar of the front range. The brick and stone cellar beneath the C15 range comprises two transverse barrel-vaulted rooms.
