49, Foregate Street

SO8455SE 620-1/12/264

WORCESTER FOREGATE STREET (West side) No.49

(Formerly listed under FRIAR STREET)

08/3/74

GV II House, now shop with offices over. Probably c1720 with refronting c1830 and later alterations including c1970s shop window. Stucco over brick with renewed cement-tile hipped roof, timber doorcase and cast-iron balcony.

PLAN: left side hallway with staircase to rear of front room and range to rear.

EXTERIOR: Three storeys, two first-floor windows. Stucco scored in imitation of ashlar, detailing includes end pilasters through first and second floors with incised Greek fret and with foliate motif to chamfered caps, low coped parapet. First and second-floors have 6/6 sashes, taller to first-floor, sills to second-floor, all in plain reveals. First-floor has continuous balcony with Carron Company double-heart-and-anthemeion motif on ornate brackets. Ground-floor: entrance to left a six-fielded panel door with fanlight with Gothick glazing bars in architrave with pilasters and open pediment.

INTERIOR: hallway now incorporated into front room but retains plasterwork with modillion cornice. Closed string, dog-leg staircase has squat rod-on-vase balusters and shaped handrail and newel posts, to full height.

HISTORICAL NOTE: during the C18 Foregate Street was known as 'the mall' and Tymbs' Worcester Guide of 1802 notes, 'the Foregate Street itself, by being well paved and sufficiently broad to admit a full circulation of air seems to be generally resorted to as a fashionable promenade.'

The Shire Hall, Statue of Queen Victoria, City Museum and Library, and nos 15, 19, 22, 23, 24, 28, Nos 33-46 (consecutive) and No.49 Foregate Street (qqv) form a significant group.

(Worcestershire Historical Society Occasional Papers: Whitehead D: Urban Renewal and Suburban Growth: The Shaping of Georgian Worcester: 1989: 12; Tymbs: Worcester Guide: Worcester: 1802: 60).