Wyggeston House

Wyggeston House

A multi-phase former dwelling, now a bar and restaurant. The building originated as a timber-framed merchant's house around 1490 and was extensively remodelled around 1760 with a new front range. The rear was rebuilt in the 19th century.

Materials and Construction

The earliest part is timber-framed with a low stone plinth. The 18th and 19th-century additions are in brick with gable chimneys. Roofing comprises Swithland slate laid to diminishing courses and Welsh slate.

Plan and Layout

The building has an irregular plan reflecting its evolved development. The brick front range to Applegate is L-shaped, clasping an earlier timber-framed wing within its inner angle. This timber-framed wing has a perpendicular rectangular-plan extension at its west end.

Exterior

The 18th-century red brick range to Applegate (formerly High Cross Street) is three storeys and six bays, rising from a low ashlar plinth. Five bays are set between giant pilasters with ornately decorated capitals. The sixth bay, beyond the right-hand pilaster, incorporates a side passage with a semi-circular headed doorway and narrow blind window openings above to the upper floors.

The five-bay section has a central doorway with a wooden doorcase beneath a traceried fanlight and open pediment. The four flanking ground floor windows have semi-circular heads and six-over-six pane sashes with additional radial glazing bars to the upper panes. Upper floor windows are six-over-six sash frames set below flat rubbed-brick arches. Storey bands mark the upper floors and a sill course the first floor. The first floor window above the central doorway has an ashlar surround with a segmental pediment and balustrade below. The second floor window has an ashlar surround with a shallow-bracketed canopy. A deep painted wooden modillion cornice marks the eaves. The south gable is plainly detailed and shows a rendered scar of a former lower building. A short three-storey extension projects to the rear with a shallow-pitched slated roof.

Behind the 18th-century range is an attached two-storey timber-framed wing. The jettied upper floor has a shallow moulded bressumer and is close studded with painted render infill panels and straight diagonal bracing. Integral to the framing are two two-light windows and a central five-light window with leaded glazing. The ground floor has an almost continuous band of wooden-mullioned windows arranged 3:6:6:5:3 in groups of tall, narrow lights with major mullions between groups. Below is a band of short studs on a shallow rubble plinth. At the east end is a doorway beneath a deep three-light overlight. At the west end of the timber-framed wing is the rendered and painted end bay of an attached 19th-century brick extension running across the full width of the wing. This bay incorporates a doorway with slender supporting columns beneath a shallow flat hood and a deeply-set window with 21st-century joinery beneath a hood-mould. The front elevation of this extension is much altered.

Interior

The interiors of both the 18th-century range and timber-framed wing have undergone alteration for the change of use to bar and restaurant. The spatial characteristics of both construction phases remain legible, and visible historic fabric survives, though many fittings and finishes are recent.

The two ground floor rooms of the 18th-century range retain contemporary joinery and plaster cornices. The entrance hallway has an internal doorcase with a deep rectangular overlight incorporating radiating metal glazing bars. Doorways on either side access the front rooms. A semi-circular arched doorway leads to a dog-leg staircase with a ramped moulded handrail, column newel posts and slender stick balusters, providing access to upper floors of both sections. Upper floor rooms of the 18th-century range are plainly detailed, some with contemporary slate hearths.

The ground floor of the timber-framed range incorporates a 19th-century or replica bar counter and back fittings but retains substantial original exposed joists to the upper floor. The inner faces of the mullions and major mullions to the glazed north wall are deeply moulded. The upper floor of the timber-framed wing is undivided, retaining arch-braced tie beams carried on jowl posts, supporting queen posts, slender collar beams and a single tier of clasped purlins. The exposed common rafters are coupled with short straight wind braces on thicker principal rafters supporting the side purlins. Two trusses at the west end retain sections of original daub and thin stone infill within the closed upper truss sections.