1, High Street

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

SP2054NW HIGH STREET 604-1/10/113 (East side) 25/10/51 No.1 (Formerly Listed as: STRATFORD ON AVON HIGH STREET No.1 Judith Shakespeare Cafe)

GV II*

Town house, now office. c1600 with earlier cellars; early C19 alterations; 1923 restoration. Roughcast to earlier timber-frame on coursed rubble plinth; hipped renewed-tile roof with brick end stack. Exterior conjectured by Forrest to have had 2 jetties to each side, and gable to Bridge Street. 3 storeys; 2-window range. Wide eaves and bracketed lead gutter. Early C20 shop front with small-paned glazing and similar paired doors, fascia extends around corner. Upper floors have projecting wooden-mullioned and transomed windows of 4 and 5 lights with leaded glazing. Canted ground floor angle has embossed lead plaque recording the building's Shakespearian connections and its restoration for the partners of WH Smith and Son, whose shop this was 1906-22. Return to Bridge Street similar; entrance to left of shop window; cross-axial stack. INTERIOR: cellar has stone walls and enriched plaster ceiling and cornice, interrupted by later partitions. Ground floor has heavy beams and dragon beam to left of entrance, and flat joists rebated for floorboards; C20 stair. 1st floor has 2 rooms with posts to former partition wall; stone fireplace to right end; attic has tie-beam and collar trusses, one truss with close-studded infill; close-studded rear and right return walls and right end fireplace. HISTORICAL NOTE: formerly the property of Richard Quiney and the home of Shakespeare's daughter Judith who married Richard's son Thomas in 1616. The cellar is said to have been part of an early town gaol, known for a period from c1470 as The Cage, used for wine storage by Richard Quiney. Records: c1381. (Bearman R: Stratford-upon-Avon: A History of its Streets and Buildings: Nelson: 1988-: 41; History of the Streets of Stratford-upon-Avon: Bearman R et al: High Street: 1971-1974; Forrest H E: The Old Houses of Stratford-upon-Avon: London: 1925-: 61-2).

Listing NGR: SP2018154972