38-42, Parliament Street

LANCASTER

SD4862 PARLIAMENT STREET 1685-1/4/219 (East side) 22/12/53 Nos.38, 40 AND 42 (Formerly Listed as: PARLIAMENT STREET No.38) (Formerly Listed as: PARLIAMENT STREET No.40) (Formerly Listed as: PARLIAMENT STREET No.42)

GV II*

Toll house and inn, now vacant. c1787, altered C20. Built as toll house for Skerton Bridge (qv), which was built 1783-87. Designed by Thomas Harrison as part of his plan for the approach to the new bridge. Sandstone ashlar with squared coursed sandstone to the sides and slate roofs. Built on the axis of the bridge, to terminate the view towards the south when approaching Lancaster. Symmetrical, with taller 2-storey 3-bay centre linked by screen walls to 2-storey 3-bay pavilions with pedimented gables. All the front windows with glazing bar sashes behind temporary covers. The central block (No.40) has a plain ashlar lower storey, and the bays of the upper storey are separated by paired engaged Ionic columns carrying a plain frieze, dentilled cornice, and a blocking course. Above the central window is a blank tablet, and above the outer windows are blind rectangular recesses. The doorway has a pediment carried on plain console brackets and a door of 6 vertical panels below a horizontal glazed panel. The roof is hipped and has chimneys to left and right. The screen walls are each of 5 bays under a cornice and blocking course and have alternating round-headed and rectangular blind recesses. The pavilions have storey bands below the moulded pediments. Each has a blind recess in the centre of the 1st floor, and has a chimney on the front and rear gables. The return wall of each pavilion is of 3 bays (that nearest to the front blind) with a central single-storey ashlar porch which has a cornice and blocking course and has pilasters flanking the doorway. At the rear the central block has a tall stair window and is connected to No.38 (to the south) by a single-storey late C20 restaurant extension. INTERIOR: a stair with stick balusters is visible through the window of the central block.

Listing NGR: SD4805662279