Summary
House, late C18 or early C19, incorporating the remains of the Church of St Mary, with later ground-floor shops.
Reasons for Designation
14 Market Place, a late-C18 or early-C19 townhouse with later ground-floor shops, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* an attractive town centre building that retains considerable historic fabric and original features;
* constructed of painted handmade brick, with a Welsh slate roof, it retains its early character, with the addition of later, well-detailed shopfronts;
* it incorporates important architectural elements of Hexham's C13 parish church, other upstanding parts of which are also listed.
Historic interest:
* one of the key buildings lining Hexham's historic marketplace, which form an important group of listed buildings with the priory church of St Andrew forming the west side.
History
This building was constructed in the late C18 or early C19 on the south side of Hexham's marketplace, and in part overlies the site of the north aisle of the former Church of St Mary. It may originally have had ground-floor shopfronts, but the present ones are late-C19 or early-C20 replacements.
An archaeological recording project identified the remains of the Church of St Mary within the interior. The church was the parish church of Hexham in the Middle Ages. It was constructed in the C13 and was the successor of an earlier Saxon church possibly on the same site and built by Bishop Wilfred. A reference in 1634 suggests that at that time the church was a roofless shell and it was probably abandoned after the Reformation in about 1540 when the adjacent former abbey church became available. After it fell into decay, parts of the church, including the nave's north arcade, became incorporated into a number of houses lining the marketplace.
Details
House, late C18 or early C19, incorporating the remains of the Church of St Mary, with later ground-floor shops.
MATERIALS: painted brick with stone lintels; Welsh slate roof.
PLAN: mid-terrace, rectangular.
EXTERIOR: the building has four storeys and two bays beneath a pitched roof of slate with truncated gable chimney stacks. There are two windows to each of the upper floors, all are unhorned sliding sashes, four-over-eight to the third floor and eight-over-eight to the second floor and first floors. There is also a two-light horned stair window in the centre of the first floor, with four-over-four sliding sash windows. All windows have flush stone lintels and projecting sills. The ground floor has a central, part-glazed panelled door set within a stone surround. This is flanked to either side by a late-C19 shopfront, each with two fascia brackets on panelled pilasters, and with recessed entrances with panelled and glazed doors.
INTERIOR: there are remains of part of the north arcade of St Mary's Church, including a stone arch pier and a fragment of a pointed arch that was formerly visible at the top of the stairs to the first floor.
