Mowbray Almshouses Forecourt Walls And Piers

SUNDERLAND

NZ3956NW CHURCH LANE 920-1/19/40 (East side) 10/11/78 Nos.1-4 (Consecutive) Mowbray Almshouses forecourt walls and piers (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH LANE (East side) Nos.1-4 (Consecutive) Mowbray Almshouses) (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH LANE (East side) Forecourt wall, piers and railings to Mowbray Almshouses)

GV II

Almshouses with forecourt walls and piers. Rebuilt 1863. By ER Robson. For Elizabeth Gray Mowbray. Forecourt walls altered c1980. Thin courses of squared sandstone rubble with ashlar plinth and dressings; Welsh slate roof with red ridge tiles. Walls and piers similar stone. L-plan building with forecourt walls forming other 2 sides of square. Gothic style. Almshouses: 2 storeys, 4 houses each with 3 windows. Each house has boarded central door, that to No.2 in canted angle bay, in pointed arch with irregular block jambs, under 2-light stone-mullioned window with tracery. Bays flanking doors have 2-light windows, those on first floor with plate tracery in pointed-arched surrounds, in full height pointed-arched panels set in gabled projections breaking eaves. Floor string. Gables have stone copings and clove finials. Steeply pitched roof has tall ashlar ridge chimneys with shallow buttresses. Left return gable has irregularly-stepped chimney-stack with head-stopped dripmould over Latin inscription commemorating foundation by John Mowbray in 1727 and rebuilding for Elizabeth Gray Mowbray in 1863. Right return gable has external chimney-stack with the Mowbray lion in low relief under dripmould with flower stops and fleur-de-lys finial. Forecourt walls attached, partly rebuilt and with renewed plain railings, have ashlar plinth and coping; square gate piers have renewed coping; intermediate pier rising from wall has Gothic coping.

Listing NGR: NZ3933556953