Summary
Built in the mid-C17 as a shop with accommodation above. Altered and extended in the C19 and C20. The mid- to late-C20 addition to the rear of the building is excluded.
Reasons for Designation
30 Westgate Street is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a mid-C17 rebuilding of a C15 ‘shophouse’, a characteristic urban building type of the medieval period;
* for the legibility of its historic planform, which retains evidence for a shop to the ground floor and a hall and chambers to the formerly jettied floors above, accessed via a rear stair turret;
* although altered, the building retains a significant proportion of early fabric including much of its C17 timber framing, notably two C17 roof trusses and a chamfered beam with step stops.
Historic interest:
* as a site that has been occupied since the Roman period, and for its contribution to our understanding of urban architecture and building types.
History
A building on the plot of 30 Westgate Street is referenced in both ‘The Terrier of Llanthony Priory’s Houses and Lands of Gloucester’ (1443) and ‘Rental of all the Houses in Gloucester’ (1455). The former, a survey of property owned by Llanthony Priory, details the building at 30 Westgate Street as a shop and tenement with a curtilage that extended to the abbey wall to the rear. It was probably built as a ‘shophouse’, a characteristic urban building type of the medieval period featuring a shop to the ground floor, and jettied upper floors with oriel windows to the hall and additional chambers above. Such buildings, as here, often included a side passage to a large rear garden to grow fruit and vegetables. The building is known to have been damaged in the Siege of Gloucester in 1643 and was probably rebuilt at that time, next being let in 1660. The principal building appears to have largely been rebuilt but with the addition of a chimney to the north of the stair turret and a timber-framed rear range, possibly a kitchen. Additional buildings were subsequently added to the garden, including a stable. In the late C18, the plot was divided with 30 Westgate Street remaining to the front and the land and the buildings to the rear being sold to the theatre manager John Boles Watson who built the Theatre Royal, Gloucester.
30 Westgate Street was remodelled in the mid-C19, and works included the rebuilding of the cellar in brick; the removal of the second-floor jetty; the removal of the oriel windows; the insertion of sash windows in new openings; and the addition of a brick chimney stack to the west elevation. The rear stair turret was retained but the staircase was replaced. The timber plank walls of the stair turret retain pieces of a varnished sanitary wallpaper with a foliate design. This type of wallpaper was popular in the C19 for use in heavy-traffic areas such as stairwells. The rear addition was also rebuilt in brick in the mid-C19. In the mid- to late-C19 the side passage was extended to the rear as a single-storey building with a glazed roof, terminating in line with the rear addition.
In the early C20 the ground floor was opened up to incorporate the side passage and the staircase was removed at ground-floor level. The egg-and-dart cornice to the ground floor appears to have been added at this time. The building is known to have become a pub by the 1920s. The partition wall separating the side passage has since been reinserted.
In the late C20, the surviving internal timber frame to the upper floors was restored with large sections being rebuilt in new oak. There is also evidence of re-used timbers. A substantial steel frame was also inserted to the first floor, with some additional metal bracing elsewhere. It is thought that the mid-C19 brick stack to the west elevation was removed at this time.
In 1977, beneath 30 Westgate Street, a large moulded column base on a rectangular stone plinth and set on a rubble-stone foundation was excavated and was shown to be part of a colonnaded forecourt to the Roman forum. The excavations also provided evidence for a medieval undercroft that was backfilled in the C12.
Details
Built in the mid-C17 as a shop with accommodation above. Altered and extended in the C19 and C20. The mid- to late-C20 addition to the rear of the building is excluded.
MATERIALS: an oak timber-framed building. The jettied front has been modified and rebuilt and is clad in plywood sheeting. The timber frame has been reconstructed in part and has been structurally reinforced with a steel frame at first-floor level, with additional metal stirrup bracing to some of the timbers. The pitched roof has been recovered in pantiles. The mid-C19 rear range is of yellow brick laid in Flemish bond.
PLAN: the mid-C17 part of the building forms the front range and includes the front half of the side passage to the right. To the rear is an off-centre stair turret. Beyond the C17 range is a two-storey, mid-C19 addition, and a mid- to late-C19 single-storey extension to the side passage; its glazed roof has been removed.
EXTERIOR: of three storeys, with attic. The principal elevation has a late-C20 glazed shopfront, with a rebuilt jettied first floor which continues up to the roofline. There are three mid-C20, plate glass, horned sash windows to the first and second floor, with a small sash to the gable; all within mid-C19 timber architraves. The rear elevation of the C17 building includes an inserted C18-style six-over-six sash window to the stair turret and to the rear wall to the left. The ground and first floor of the rear elevation are obscured by C19 extensions.
INTERIOR: the ground floor has been opened up to provide a single shop unit with a partition wall re-inserted between it and the side passage. The egg and dart cornice to the ground floor was probably added in the early C20. The winder staircase rises from the first floor to the attic, with the ground floor section having been removed. The treads have been replaced in the C20, along with the balustrade at attic level, although it retains part of its C17 newel post, and timber boards to the stair turret walls. There is a section of a late C19 sanitary wallpaper to the boards between the first and second floors. To the first, second, and attic floor is C17 timber framing including a cross-axial chamfered beam with step stops, and a post with mortice holes which provides possible evidence for an oriel window to the first floor. There is also a significant proportion of late-C20 oak framing and a substantial steel frame inserted at first-floor level. The roof structure retains two C17 roof trusses with principal rafters, collars, yokes, and the ridge purlin above, with some remaining common rafters. The two end trusses were rebuilt in the late C20.
