Former Soup Kitchen To Rear Of Number 49 Commercial Street

SO 5140 SW HEREFORD UNION PASSAGE (South West side) 683-1/8/10000 Former Soup Kitchen to rear of No.49 Commercial Street GV II Fonner soup kitchen, now commercial premises. 1872. By Thomas Nicholson for the Hereford Society for Aiding the Industrious. Red brick with part slate, part glazed, roof Single storey. Gable end to Union Passage has 2 round-arched doorways and large window between. Roof has long raised louvre at apex with glazing to roof pitch. INTERIOR. One large space, the doors once serving as the entrance and exit for dispensing the soup. Boarded roof is supported on collar trusses with curved braces rising from moulded stone corbels and criss-cross bracing supporting the upper collar. HISTORY. Nicholson built and restored many churches as well as schools, mainly in Herefordshire and Radnorshire. He was Hereford Diocesan Architect and also acted as architect and adviser to the Hereford Society for Aiding the Industrious during the 1860's and 70's. It was during this time that he was asked to design a purpose-built soup kitchen at the rear of the Society offices in Nos.49/50 Commercial Street (qv). He was asked to draw up plans 'on the most approved principles with a room in which the poor may partake of the soup'. During the summer it was used as a temperance refreshment room. This is a rare survival of such an institution. (O'Donnell], 'John Venn and the Hereford Sociey for Aiding the Industrious'; Trans. Woolhope Naturalists Fld. Club XLVI (1990), pp.498-516)

Listing NGR: SO5118740083