Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 13/12/2012
SO 8609 (part)
8/332
21.10 55
PAINSWICK
VICARAGE STREET
(south side)
Yew Tree House
(formerly known as Mundays)
GV
II*
Detached house, set back from street. 1670, for Thomas Loveday. Limestone ashlar, stone slate roof
with ashlar stacks. PLAN: compact plan, in a very regular cross-gabled range with its main front away
from the street, using a steep fall in the site to provide a lower ground floor built against the slope on
the street side, but with full height exposed on the garden front. The plan has a central through hall
with dog-leg staircase, flanked by a single room approximately 5 metres square each side at each level
of two storeys, attic and basement; the chimney breasts are on the rear gable walls facing the street. A
small 2-floor extension was added at the east end in the early C20, utilising some earlier fragments for
windows, with single ridge roof.
EXTERIOR: Windows generally are recessed chamfer stone-mullioned casements, but with some
replacements of the late C18 by glazing-bar sashes. The entrance front has a small central gable with
an oculus in a square enriched panel above a 2-light casement without mullion, and a portico with
plain Roman Doric columns carrying a lead-covered tent-hood over a fine plank and nail-head door,
probably from the C16 or earlier, in a moulded architrave. All gables are coped, and the two main
gables to this front carry fine ashlar stacks with triple shafts, detached, but with conjoined moulded
cappings, set diagonally in a triangular formation. Moulded strings above ground and first floors
continue round all fronts. The garden front was originally fenestrated symmetrically, with 7 small 2-light
mullioned casements at ground and first floor levels, but this was modified in the C18, and the
elevation now has a small 2-light window with stopped drip to each gable, under a small oculus vent,
and a small oculus toa lower central gable. At first floor there is a central 2-light window, with one
12-pane sash to the left, and two 2-light casements to the right; ground floor has a central 2-light, with
two large 12-pane sashes to the left, and one 2-light and one sash to the right. The lower ground floor,
or basement, is in large square coursed blocks, set forward to form a plinth, with a 3-light mullioned
casement to a stopped drip, to the left, and an off-centre door, flanked by small single lights, under a
flat-roofed pillared portico. To the right is the gabled extension, with a 2-light casement at first floor,
a small square stack, and a rubble extension brought proud of the wall of the original building, and with
long raking coping, to its left. At the junction of the new and old structures is a cropped stack, on the
corner, inserted before the addition of the new range. The east gable end has a single window at each
level, 2-light to the gable, 3-light at first floor, 4-light with king mullion at ground floor, and 2-light
to the basement. The 4-light window retains early leading in small rectangular panes. The opposite
gable has a small oculus above a 2-light casement, then the added range in 2 storeys, with two 2-light
above a single 2-light and a door.
INTERIOR: each main room has 2 chamfered and stopped beams; most of these have been hacked,
as for plaster, but there is no evidence that they were plastered. Ground floor left has a large fireplace
with bolection-mould surround and pulvinated frieze to the moulded mantelshelf; this may be a C20
replacement of the original, and it contains a square stone surround with quadrant mould. The walls
have large plain panels with thin muntins, a moulded dado rail, all painted, and a moulded cornice. The
4-light window has C19 iron-framed secondary glazing fitted behind the small-scale leading, and on
one pane of a sash is a rough scratched date of 1791, which seems appropriate for the detail of the
window. The former kitchen to the left of entry has a wide fireplace with deep stone chamfered lintel,
with a central joint, on stone jambs, but at a higher level, immediately below the main beams, which
are partly housed to it, is a rough timber bressumer. The main door has heavy horizontal planking
internally, and the central staircase has no visible early detail except for one short fight to the basement,
which has an early balustrade with solid string, turned balusters, square newel and moulded handrail;
at some time there was an external door from the quarter-landing to the basement. The basement has
stone floors, a series of regularly-spaced beams, a C17 panelled door, probably removed from elsehwere
in the house, and a small C19 fireplace on the garden front, corresponding with the cropped corner
stack. In the centre of the rear wall is an unexplained niche-like recess, possibly to a former well, and
opposite this is a stone slab with moulded edge, set on 3 shaped brackets, reminiscent of a table tomb.
The external door is a modified C16 plank and nail-head door similar to the main entry. At first floor
the ceiling beams have generally been repaired with careful scarfed ends and iron brackets, probably
in the C19. The room right of the staircase has a small bolection-mould fireplace with Regency iron
grate, and the 3-light casement has a long moulded panel above, and 3 cupboard doors with fielded
panelling below. The other room has a C19 stone fire surround with fine Regency grate. At attic level
there are framed partitions to the two central trusses, and exposed collars to the remainder, one of these
with a pronounced central camber. There is one C17 6-panel door with plank and moulded batten
backing, and there are small C19 stone fire surrounds. The casements retain early iron fittings. This
is a very fine house, with minimal alterations, exemplifying the more centralised Renaissance plan forms
and architectural fashions which were becoming increasingly influential in this region from the late C17.
The Lovedays were a prominent Quaker family in Painswick, and burials from 1685 to 1771 are
recorded in the burial ground nearby in Vicarage Street; they were also mill-owners, and a Loveday's
Mill (qv) with house survives in an adjacent valley.
Listing NGR: SO8694809730
