33, WESTGATE STREET

Details

GLOUCESTER

SO8318NW WESTGATE STREET 844-1/8/392 (South side) 12/03/73 No.33 (Formerly Listed as: WESTGATE STREET (South side) Nos.31 AND 33)

GV II*

Merchant's house, now shop and former dwelling. Probably C15, refronted in mid C18, minor C19 and C20 alterations. Timber frame and brick above a stone and brick cellar. A narrow front of one-bay masking the former gable-end of a right-angle plan framed range four bays deep. EXTERIOR: three storeys above cellar, formerly a medieval undercroft. On the front a simple shop-front with recessed glazed doorway on right and a fascia with a moulded frame above; on each of the upper floors a central, horned sash, with central glazing bar, in a flat-arched opening with a slightly projecting and raised keystone, and a projecting stone sill; the former crowning cornice has been removed. Rear elevation has gable with hung slate cladding exposed above adjoining property at rear. INTERIOR: cellar, originally the undercroft of the medieval house, with a separate entrance from Westgate Street, has stone rubble side walls with evidence of stone springing for a segmental barrel vault, mostly rebuilt in brick, but with some portions removed later; the side walls bond with stone rubble front wall with central opening now the access to pavement light, but originally the doorway from street to undercroft; on the west side of the opening a rebated jamb with outer hollow roll moulding is bonded with inner wall face; detached stones with the same moulding remain in cellar from the east jamb, removed when service pipes inserted in C20; rear wall of brick with C19 stove inset within segmental brick arched recess. On the ground floor behind the head of the shop-front is the moulded bressumer which supported the former first- floor jetty of the original timber-framed front, otherwise the ground floor relined in C20; timber stairs to rear left. On first and second floors projections in the wall faces indicate the positions of the principal posts of the timber frame of four bays divided by a central cross partition on each floor. On the second floor indications of a substantial curved brace in the second bay from the front in the west

wall, and on the east side of the rear wall. The framing of the east wall removed when the adjoining property, No.31 Westgate Street (qv), rebuilt in mid C18, but to support the rafters the wall plate retained on timber knee brackets inserted to each side of the chimney-stack projecting from west wall of No.31 within the front bays of No.33, and on iron straps within the rear bays; soffit of wall plate has retained mortices for bracing to tie beams. The second floor is open into the roof space to the presumed level of the collar ties to the trusses. The exposed portion of the truss between the two northern bays has a slightly cambered tie beam with its original pegged knee brace on the east side indicated by the mortice in the underside of the beam. HISTORY: the building is a rare and substantially complete example of a small, late medieval merchant's town house with its undercroft.



Listing NGR: SO8307618626

Legacy

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Legacy System number:

472623

Legacy System:

LBS

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