1 And 3, Cable Street

LANCASTER

SD4761NE CABLE STREET 1685-1/7/25 (North side) 22/12/53 Nos.1 AND 3 (Formerly Listed as: CABLE STREET No.1) (Formerly Listed as: CABLE STREET No.3 Probate Registry)

GV II

Pair of houses, now shop and office, and a restaurant. 1760, altered and part demolished c1965. Designed by Richard Gillow. For Captain Henry Fell and Mr Samuel Simpson. Sandstone ashlar facade with ashlar dressings, and coursed and squared sandstone with brick used in part of the rear wing (perhaps the earliest dated use in Lancaster). Slate roof with, to the right, a coped gable with kneelers and a tall gable chimney. T-plan: double-depth front range with a long 2-storey rear wing. Originally 3 storeys above a cellar, although No.1 now has only one storey. 8 bays, 3 to No.1 and 5 to No.3, the last 2 placed over a waggon entrance with a deep stone lintel. Chamfered quoins, a first-floor sill band, and a moulded eaves cornice. All the windows have moulded architraves with triple keystones, those in No.3 have 12-pane sashes. In third and fourth bays the doorways of both houses are combined into a central feature (apparently the first time that this was done in Lancaster) with a single Doric pediment with triglyph frieze carried on 3 engaged columns. The doors are recessed, with 4 steps leading to panelled doors which have integral overlights with tracery of different patterns. The rear wing (approached through the waggon entrance) is covered by modern additions on the ground floor, but otherwise has coupled windows and a central 2-stage stair window, all with glazing bars. INTERIOR: No.3 has a dogleg staircase with an open string and scrolled brackets, and reeded architraves to some doors. HISTORY: Captain Fell was a Port Commissioner and perhaps a relative of Gillow. The specification for this building survives in the Gillow archives, and the mason was William Kirby, for whose use the design of the central doorway was drawn out at a large scale. Captain Fell's new house at Fleet Bridge is referred to in the specification for mason's work at the new Custom House (now the Maritime Museum, qv), prepared in 1762. No.3 was listed on 18.2.1970.

Listing NGR: SD4761361954