Details
ELY
606/0/10023 ST MARY'S STREET
22-MAY-07 6
II
DESCRIPTION
Shop, C17 with C18 and C19 additions to the rear, refronted in the C19. Brick, painted to the front, and a slate covered roof. L-shaped in plan with a rectangular range along the street front and an adjoining C18 range to the rear running back down the plot, with C19, single-storey, additions beyond. Also attached to the rear is a small, mono pitch, two-storey block. The building is two storeys in height on the street front, but the rear two-storey range is raised above a basement. The main elevation contains a shop front at ground floor level and a single casement window above. A parapet conceals the eaves and is common to No.6 and No.8. There is a brick stack to the left rear of the front range and also at the end of the main rear range. Fenestration is mostly modern. The mid/late C19 shop front comprises a late C19/early C20 three light door with a brass kicking plate and stained-glass over light, to the left of a large plate glass window above a plain stall riser and beneath three lights, intended for decorative glass. The openings are framed by pilaster heads and there is a dentilled cornice above. There are later additions for a canopy. To the left of the shop door, another doorway gives access to the remainder of the property.
INTERIOR: Access through the floors is gained by a timber staircase which is positioned at the junction of the front and the rear range and which rises to the upper floor of the rear range; the highest level in the property. For the lower flight the balusters are boarded in and may not survive. At the upper levels there are splat balusters with plain tapered shafts. The hand rail is flat and plain, and the rectangular newels are thin and chamfered. The newels are likely to be early C20 in date, the painted balusters are probably C18.
Very limited access to the roof is above the stairs. It has been altered in the C19 and later. Earlier members survive, notably several rafters of the rear pitch of the front range (contained within the roof of the rear range). These rafters are visible within the room below and are there carried by a purlin, to which they are pegged. The opposite purlin, at the front of the front range, is modern. The section of the roof of the rear range visible here is a simple A fame with collars clasping a purlin. Its rafters meet at a ridge plank. This roof is C19 or later.
At the ground-floor level of the front range there is a single room which until recently formed shop accommodation. The door into the shop from the rear is mid/late C19 in date. The beam over this room runs axially and is plain with a rolled edge and is C19, however it is on the line of a C17 beam over the entrance way adjacent to the shop.
The ground-floor partition between the shop and the entrance way is timber-framed, probably C17 and is intact. A central post houses two, very long, rising braces which pass over intermediate studs to which they are clout nailed. At each end, early C20 studs have been inserted into what were probably door openings. The opposing partition, the division between No.6 and No.8, is entirely an early C20 creation comprising studs with a decorative, adzed effect. At its centre is a blocked doorway which gave access between the two properties.
From the stair the rear range is accessed on the two upper floors via doorways which contain two-panel doors with HL hinges. The first floor room has a brick fireplace in a sub arts and crafts style, with joinery which has a decorative 'adzed' finish and which dates from the early C20.
HISTORY
By the time of Bishop Fordhams's survey of 1417, St Mary's Street (then High Row Street) had been established. Speed's Map of Ely of 1610 shows that by that time the north side of St Mary's Street had been built up, although the map is not detailed enough to highlight particular buildings. There was considerable development in Ely between 1610 and the middle of the C18 when the number of buildings was estimated at 609 and brick was the established building material, as opposed to a mixture of materials, including timber-framing, earlier.
Speed's map was probably too early to depict No. 6 St. Mary's Street but there is some evidence internally of C17 fabric, notably the right hand partition of the entrance way. The building is located some way from the C17th market place so that it is not certain that it was at that time commercial premises, although the prominent location and the name 'High Row Street' makes this a possibility.
In the C18 the building was extended to the rear by a two storey and basement range, and a splat baluster stair was inserted to service both ranges. In the C19 the building was re-fronted in common with No. 8, with changes to the roof at this time. It may be that it was converted to a shop at that time as the shop front is mid/late C19 in date. Also, a single-storey rear extension was added to the C18 range. In the early C20 there was a campaign of refurbishment in a sub arts and crafts style. At this time the two properties were linked as the present ground floor dividing wall, a sub arts and crafts recreation of a C17 partition, contains a doorway. The C19 shop front survives but all the other fenestration is modern. Until recently No 6 has been a confectionary and tobacco shop with a bed and breakfast over.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
A two-storey brick building, most recently used as a shop and which may have begun life as commercial premises, given the prominent location in the city. It is L shaped in plan and fronts St. Mary's Street. There is evidence within the fabric of various campaigns of work, notably a C17 timber-framed partition at the west end of the front range with a beam over, an C18 two storey rear range with two panel doors and an altered splat baluster stair case, and a good mid/late C19 shop front. The building is indicative of the type of repeated re-casting an urban building in this kind of location might be expected to undergo.
