26, Church Street

26 Church Street, Bromyard

An attached stone town house dating from the 17th century and much altered in later periods. The building is constructed from squared stone brought to course, under slate roofs with brick chimney stacks.

The house is L-shaped in plan, with the main range running north-south along Church Street and a further wing extending east-west from the northern end. It rises to two storeys over a cellar and presents a symmetrical three-bay front to the street. The windows are two-light, multi-paned timber casements set in segmental-headed openings, with stone cills. The central bay contains a doorway flanked by windows on the ground floor and another window on the first floor. The doorway itself is wide and houses narrow double doors, set beneath a dentil hood. Above it is an inscribed stone panel reading "DUMBLETON / HALL". The roof is shallow-pitched, hipped to the north, with chimney stacks at either end; the southern stack displays two 19th-century decorative chimney pots.

Inside, a first-floor room to the rear contains an Adam-style fireplace. The cellar retains two cells with barred roofs and an original window with chamfered jambs, square heads and iron bars, evidencing the building's former use as a court house.

The building stands on Church Street, one of Bromyard's principal thoroughfares, adjoining the church and adjacent to the market square. Church Street and its southern continuation, Sherford Street, were known as Verterus Vicus in the late 13th century and recorded as Shurford Streate in 1575. The central area of the town south of the church was fully built up by the early 17th century, though plots have undergone redevelopment since. Originally known as Dumbleton Hall, this property was used in the 19th century as council chambers, a police station and magistrates' court; the two cellar cells were created during its use for these purposes. The building has undergone significant alterations, principally in the 18th and 19th centuries.