1, CASTLE STREET

Details

BRIDGWATER

ST2937SE CASTLE STREET 736-1/10/16 (South side) 24/03/50 No.1

GV I

Harbour Master's house, now offices. 1723-8. For James Brydges, Duke of Chandos. By Benjamin Holloway or Fort and Shepherd, the Duke's London surveyors. Red and yellow Flemish-bond brick, Ham Hill stone quoins and plinth capping, painted stone architraves, pantile roof hipped to the left with brick stacks to rear corners. 2-unit central-entry plan. 3 storeys with basement; symmetrical 3-window range. The upper storey is entirely of red brick but the quoin to the left appears to be continuous. Segmental arches and thick glazing bars to 6/6-pane sash windows with crown glass panes; moulded cills, windows to left and right have moulded architraves, those to centre have painted rusticated stone segmental arches and jambs, each stone the size of a brick. The moulded architrave to the C19 six-panel door has a moulded keystone and plain plinths. To left of the door is a timber lintel to a wide late C18/early C19 shop window which has 4 rows of 7 panes with thin glazing bars and a timber cill. Flanking the door are segmental arches to the basement. The left return has no plinth, it is one-window range with segmental arches and moulded cills to a C20 6/6-pane sash window to the second floor, 6/6-pane sash to the first floor with thick glazing bars and a forward frame and a similar window below with thin glazing bars. A blocked door to the right has a low lintel to a grille over a basement opening. INTERIOR: room to ground-floor left, behind the shop window, has a diagonal corner chimney breast to rear left corner, a reeded cornice and C19 tongue-and-grooved planking below a dado rail. The floor to this side is higher than the rest. The stairs against the rear wall are late C19 to ground floor and early C18 with closed string, turned balusters and moulded rail to the upper floors. Room to first-floor right has a corner chimney breast to rear right and a moulded cornice stopped over the windows which reach the ceiling. The terraces of houses in Castle Street form an important group, unusual for their scale and ambition outside London's West End. (Colvin H: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1660-1840: London: 1978-: 428; Buildings of England: Pevsner N: South and West Somerset: London: 1958-: 100; VCH: Somerset: London: 1992-: 200).

Listing NGR: ST2999237180

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

373832

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: South and West Somerset, (1958), 100
Dunning, R W, The Victoria History of the County of Somerset, (1992), 200
Colvin, H M, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, (1978), 428

End of official list entry

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