Summary
Mid-C18 town house, about 1750, by William Middleton, with C19 and C20 alterations.
Reasons for Designation
2 Highgate and 2A Roberts Road, of about 1750, by William Middleton, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a fashionable and well-appointed mid-C18 middle-class townhouse that demonstrates a good quality of design and is executed in good materials;
* it retains much of its mid-C18 fittings and fixtures, including joinery, plasterwork, a good quality closed well staircase, and a Gothick-style privy.
Historic interest:
* the house was the childhood home of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), the foremost feminist radical political writer of the late-C18;
* one of the earliest surviving houses designed and built by William Middleton, Beverley's leading C18 architect and builder, who has a number of listed buildings to his name.
Group value:
* the house has a clear spatial and functional group value with nearby listed Grade II buildings, including 1 Highgate, 4 Highgate, and 16 and 17 Wednesday Market.
History
This middle-class town house was built in about 1750 on Highgate, the main thoroughfare from Wednesday Market to Beverley Minster, with an extension to rear range added shortly afterwards. The site had previously been occupied by housing and industries with medieval origins, including leather tanning. 2 Highgate was built and designed by William Middleton, Beverley's leading architect/builder of the C18, and is considered to be one of his earliest surviving houses. William Middleton was responsible for the listed Grade I Beverley Guildhall, and 66 and 67 Beverley North Bar, and has five other listed Grade II buildings in Beverley, along with many other un-listed buildings.
The most famous resident of the house was Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), who was nine-years old, when the Wollstonecraft family moved to Beverley, where she spent her formative years. It is unclear whether the family resided at 2 Highgate all this time, but rate returns between 1771 and late September 1775, show that the family were certainly living at 2 Highgate between those dates. Mary's education was limited to attending a day school to learn to read and write; however, she was also tutored in philosophy and science by Dr John Arden, a friend's father. Mary was only 15 years and five months of age when the family left Beverley in 1775. From 1780 to 1880, the house became the home of the Lambert family. George Lambert and his son George Jackson Lambert were the Minster organists between 1777 and 1874. George senior's daughter Elizabeth was the organist of the Church of St Mary, Beverley and was also an accomplished artist. The house remained in residential use until the 1980s, when it became an office.
Mary Wollstonecraft's (1759-1797) first book 'Thoughts on the Education of Daughters' was published in 1787; it was drawn very much on her personal experiences and, in 1792, the publication of her highly influential 'Vindication of the Rights of Women: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects', which propounded the complete equality between the sexes, marked her as being a free thinker and the foremost feminist radical political writer of the time, both in Europe and America. She died in 1797, 11 days after giving birth to her daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Mary Shelley - poet and author). Following her death, her unconventional views and relationships, resulted in numerous defamatory attacks and a loss of reputation, which was only gradually restored during the late C19 and the early C20. She is now considered to be one of the most discussed, admired and criticised, feminist intellectuals in history.
Details
Mid-C18 town house, about 1750, by William Middleton, with C19 and C20 alterations.
MATERIALS: brick, painted stone sills to front elevation, with tumbled brick gables and kneelers, and pantile roofs but with front slope re-clad in Welsh slate.
PLAN: L- plan, four-bays, two-storey house with a service range to the rear; the principal elevation faces east on to Highgate. Gothick privy in the rear garden.
EXTERIOR: the four-bay, main elevation has the lower nine brick courses forming a plain flush plinth, which has a recessed stone-mounted boot scrapper and an incised broad arrow benchmark, to the right of the front door and an iron cellar ventilator grille to the left. A recessed six-panel timber door with a moulded three-light rectangular fanlight, is set within a classical-style pedimented doorcase, approached by three Yorkstone steps. The fanlight has stained glass panels, each with polychrome edging. The central panel is occupied by a star and the two sides have a central Christogram of IHS (representing Jesus) flanked by yellow coloured English and Scottish symbols. The prominent doorcase projects out from the building; it has a moulded and rebated shouldered architrave rising off a three-stepped plain plinth on each side, with a central tablet to the frieze, and a moulded cornice and pediment. A Royal Exchange Assurance fire insurance sign is attached to the wall above the pediment. A circular green Beverley and District Civic Society plaque commemorating Mary Wollstonecraft is attached to the wall to the right of the front door. There is a single window to the left of the doorway, two to the right, and four to the first floor; all with two-light Victorian sashes, painted stone sills and gauged brick lintels.
To the rear, the projecting service range obscures the two northern bays of the building. There is a partially glazed six-panel rear door in the left of the two exposed bays, with a four-light sash window above. The door has a moulded three-light rectangular fanlight with stained glass oval panels that contain a variety of diamond-set coloured patterns and motifs. Both floors of the right-hand bay are blind, apart from a blocked-up cellar window with a segmental brick arch.
2 Highgate is attached on both sides to other buildings and only the upper parts of the gables are visible. Both ends of the gabled roof have raised tumbled brick verges, which terminate in moulded brick kneelers and a brick chimney rises from each gable apex. The south gable has a two-light attic window that is partially obscured by the roof of 4 Highgate and a similar window in the north gable is also partially obscured by the roof of an adjacent house. The east slope of the roof is clad in Welsh slate and has two square-headed dormer windows, fitted with four-light sashes, flat canopies and glazed side panels, and the guttering is carried on a moulded brick eaves course and has a modern rainwater downpipe. The western slope of the roof is clad in pantiles and is drained into the roof guttering of the rear service range.
SERVICE RANGE (now known as 2A Lord Roberts Road): the rear two-storey service range projects at a right-angle from the main range and is built in two phases. The first phase is original to the building; however, the second phase appears to have been added only a short time later, as it is built of very similar bricks. The right-hand bay of the south elevation forms the first phase and has a single four-light sash window to each floor. The two left-hand bays form the second phase are skewed slightly from the original alignment and project further forward, with the junction between the phases marked by an offset. The elevation bows out slightly from the top and has one strap and two round tie-plates. The ground floor of the two later bays has modern fenestration with a bow and a sash window, and a half-glazed four-panel timber door. The first floor is lit by a pair of small four-light sash windows with exposed boxes.
The north elevation is blind apart from a small four-light casement window that is situated slightly to the right of a stepped straight joint between the two phases. Two strap and two round tie-plates are situated beneath the eaves. The ground-floor is partially built against and obscured by the boundary wall of the adjacent property. The gabled roof of the rear range is clad in pantiles and is drained by a mixture of cast-iron and plastic rainwater goods. The junction between the two phases of the roof is marked by the projection of the raised tumbled brick verge of the former gable end of the first phase, with a rendered brick chimney stack rising from its apex, and the height of the ridge drops slightly to the west. The southern slope of the roof has two four-light sash dormer windows with flat canopies.
The west gable has an asymmetrical elevation, with two small modern windows lighting the ground-floor, a single large sash to the right of the first floor and a pair of small uPVC windows and two split-strap tie-plates within the apex of the gable.
INTERIOR: the entrance hall spans the full width of the building and connects the front and rear doors. The hall has a stone tiled floor, painted timber dado panelling and picture rails, and is divided by an arch carried on moulded pilasters. Two doorways to either side of the front hall have moulded architraves and plain door reveals. The one to the left enters a small reception room with a blocked canted corner chimney breast, and the one to the right enters the former parlour/dining room. Both rooms have mid-C18 painted dado panelling with window seats and panelled window shutters and moulded cornices. The former parlour/dining room has a chimney breast against the north wall that has a large late-C19 polished-slate fireplace, with a projecting cast-iron grate with floral tiled panels. A wide depressed open archway in the west wall leads into a servery passageway. A four-panelled door in the rear wall of the passageway, originally gave access to the kitchen in the service range, and a tall doorway with a segmented fanlight at the southern end of the passageway leads back into the hall, opposite the staircase.
A mid-C18, closed well staircase with an open string rises on the southern side of the rear of the hall; it has dado panelling and a ramped handrail carried on a balustrade of tapered turned balusters, with an end spiral terminating in a column newel post on a curtail step. A four-panel door located beneath the soffit of the upper flight, opens onto a fight of brick steps that lead down to a low barrel-vaulted basement, which spans the southern bays of the house.
The first-floor landing is lined with dado panels and lit by a four-light sash window, fitted with shutters and a window seat. A large contemporary low-relief ceiling rose is situated directly above the stairs. The landing gives access to three rooms; one occupying the northern two-bays, and two smaller one-bay rooms to the south. Apart from a Victorian fire surround in the northern room and panelled window seats and window shutters, these rooms are unadorned. The southern room has a blocked corner chimney breast like the reception room below. A short passageway on the northern side of the landing gives access to a blocked door into the rear range and to a steep dog-leg winder stair to the attic. It leads to a small landing within the slope of the roof that has three doorways leading off it; one blocked into the rear range and two into the attic rooms. Each room is unadorned and built into the slope of the roof, with sloping ceilings, a blocked chimney breast and are lit by a casement window in the gable walls and have east facing dormer window. A hatch above the landing allows access into the roof, which has a mixture of principal and common rafters, a bitumized felt lining, and secondary struts beneath the western slope of the roof.
SERVICE RANGE (now known as 2A Lord Roberts Road): the rear service range is entered by the doorway in the south wall; it leads into a small stair hall that gives access to a utility room and a kitchen to the right, and the siting room to the left, all with modern interiors. A steep plain staircase sandwiched between two walls rises to a small first-floor landing that gives access to the left to the first-floor master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, and to the right down a few steps to a large bathroom with a walk-in cupboard. The bedroom has an off-set four-light sash window in the west wall with a similar window seat to those in the main body of the house. A stair rises from the landing to the attic floor, which has two bedrooms within the slope of the roof; the western bedroom has two exposed rafters made from re-used notched floor beams.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURE: a small rectangular-plan, brick-built privy with a mono-pitched roof, clad in pantiles, is situated against the southern boundary wall that separates 2 Highgate from 4 Highgate. It is unclear exactly when it dates to but given that it has a Gothick window, it could date from about 1770 to the 1820s. The privy is entered by a serrated plank door in the north elevation and is lit by a Gothick-style, multi-paned lancet window, which is fitted with a small sliding Yorkshire sash. The interior has a red and black quarry tile floor, white-washed walls lined by a plain muntin wainscot, and it has a timber lined water closet syphon with lead pipes, supported by an iron bar.
