The Pheasant

WORCESTER

SO8554NW NEW STREET 620-1/17/454 (East side) 22/05/54 No.25 The Pheasant Formerly Listed as: NEW STREET (East side) No.25 Old Pheasant Inn)

GV II*

Large house, now public house (shown as Pheasant Inn on 1886 O.S. map, thought to have first become an inn at end of C18). Late C16 with subsequent alterations and extensions; major structural repairs c1984. Possibly built for George Stinton. Timber frame with rendered infill panels believed to be brick. Plain clay tile roof. Rectangular plan of 4 bays but originally L-plan with stair turret to angle and pedestrian through-passage at left, widened in C18 as coach entrance. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, upper storeys jettied. 4 first-floor windows. Framing is a mixture of close-studding and square panels with some herringbone decoration. The partially renewed bressumer to the second floor has a stepped cyma moulding. Carved and gilded console brackets to coach entrance. Several of the posts incorporate slender pilasters with plinth and capital supporting console brackets [cf 29 New Street (qqv)]. 2 purlins per roof slope. Mainly 6/6 sashes to first-floor, those to left and right are tripartite with 4/4 flanking sashes; pair of side-hung casements to left of right-hand window. 3-light mullion and transom windows to centre and right ground-floor, renewed square leaded panes, frieze with applied carved and gilded decoration, cornice. Leaded casements to second-floor. Left-return which also forms a party-wall to No.26 is mainly brick. Right-return is horizontal weatherboarding over square panel framing. INTERIOR: Ground-floor to front has 4 panels to beamed ceiling, the beams cribed with drawn-out plaster moulding to borders of each panel; similar 2 panels to left, the beams intersected by carriageway partition; similar ceilings to first-floor left and second-floor. First-floor room to left has stop-chamfered beams to 6-panel ceiling, traces of black-line decoration to wall infill panels. Panelling in left-hand room. turned balusters and moulded handrail to late C16 staircase, a remarkable survival. HISTORICAL NOTE: a notable survival of a late C16 town house with interior features and clear evidence of its original plan form. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire: Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 329; Molyneux N, Hughes P, Price S: Vernacular Architecture Group Spring Conference Worcs 1995: 2.9; Hughes P: Bldgs and the Bldg Trade in Worcester 1540-1650 (PhD Thesis): 1990-: 148-9, 175, 439).