Queen Elizabeth Almshouses And Adjoining Boundary Walls And Gates

Queen Elizabeth Almshouses and adjoining boundary walls and gates, Worcester

Almshouses built in 1876–77, with later alterations, designed by Aston Webb. The buildings are constructed of red brick with limestone dressings.

The roofs are half-hipped with plain clay tiles and finials. End gables are parapeted with copings and are terminated by rectangular brick stacks with heavily corbelled tops and pots. A timber balustrade with diagonal bracing sits above the centre first-floor window. Small decorative terracotta panels ornament the gables of bay windows. Inscribed plaques to the Upper Tything elevation are rendered in stucco within wooden frames and stone.

The almshouses are arranged on a double-depth plan with a central hall, positioned around three sides of a lawned courtyard. Five blocks in total comprise the complex: Block 3 to the north, Blocks 4 and 5 to the east, and Blocks 1 and 2 to the west. Blocks 1 and 2 share a central entrance bay accessing the courtyard and face out onto Upper Tything; Blocks 3, 4 and 5 face inwards to the courtyard. Each block has an identical symmetrical facade with a central doorway flanked by full-height bays surmounted by gables. The buildings are two storeys high with three first-floor windows per block.

Stone detailing includes continuous sill and head bands to windows on both floors. Head bands to ground-floor windows incorporate a projecting string course. Gable copings and finials ornament the apex of bay gables. Voussoirs arch over courtyard entrances on Blocks 1 and 2.

Windows throughout are 3-light mullion windows with ovolo-moulded frames. Ground-floor windows have transoms with side-hung casements as the centre light and a night-vent above. The centre first-floor window has a dropped sill and is slightly recessed behind a low balustrade with turned balusters; diagonal braces brace the upper corners of the window recess. Dwarf walls approximately 0.6 metres high with copings partially enclose an area of blue-brick paving in front of bolection-moulded 6-panel entrance doors. Overlight and sidelights descend to sill-band level, with leaded panes to the overlight and some transom lights.

Blocks 1 and 2 onto Upper Tything are linked by a slightly recessed entrance bay with a wide open archway accessing the courtyard. Voussoirs form the arch with a plaque above inscribed 'Erected by the Six Governors and Supervisors of the Free School and Almshouses' and dated 1878. Above this is a coving of four stucco panels within a moulded frame. The outer panels carry in relief the ancient Quartered shield with castle and the modern Shield with a fess and three black pears, both Coats of Arms of the City. The centre pair of panels bear the date 1561 and the inscription 'Semper fidelis mutare sperno.' The corresponding area of wall above the arch on the rear elevation is decorated in diagonal basket-weave pattern brickwork.

Shallow single- and two-storey wings extend to all rear elevations under plain clay tile roofs, fitted with 20th-century fenestration.

Subsidiary features include a wrought-iron gate and boundary wall of red brick with triangular blue-brick coping to the north. Pair of wrought-iron gates and red brick gate piers with stone details are positioned to the west. To the north, approximately 8 metres of 1.5-metre-high wall links Blocks 1 and 2 with Block 3, pierced by a pedestrian gate of simple design; a further length of wall runs due east from Block 3 for approximately 15 metres. To the west, a pair of ornamental scrolled gates hang on brick piers with roll-moulded arrises; stone plinth and pyramidal cap with dentilled frieze. The gates and piers have been relocated; this and the later low coped wall and railings to either side probably relate to road widening in the first half of the 20th century.

The date 1561 marks the Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I, which refounded what became the Royal Grammar School and provided for the appointment of the Six Masters to be Governors and Supervisors of the 'Free School and Almose houses of the Cittie of Worcester.'