61, High Street

WORCESTER

SO8454NE HIGH STREET 620-1/16/340 (West side) 22/05/54 No.61

GV II

Corner terraced house, now offices. c1710 with later additions and alterations. Red brick with painted stone dressings; stone shop-front; tall steeply-pitched plain clay tile roof, hipped to right, stack to right-return at right of front roof slope, corbelled top. Moulded timber modillion eaves cornice. Lead hopper head and downpipe. Rectangular plan originally probably single-depth, double-fronted with entrance from Broad Street. 3 storeys with basement and attic. 3 first-floor windows. Stone detailing includes rusticated quoins, moulded sills, inscribed capped keystones to window heads, those to first-floor linked by moulded band. Ground-floor is ashlar below moulded sill band with banded rustication above, entablature with modillion cornice; engaged columns capped by moulded and carved console brackets support head of former corner entrance, now late C20 canted bay window. 3/6 sashes to first-floor, 6/6 to second-floor, late C20 8/8 to ground-floor, all in ear-flush-frames under flat gauged brick arches. Pedimented dormer with pair of 3-pane side-hung casements. Return elevation to Broad Street is similar with 5 first-floor windows and 3 dormers, latter have 4-pane and 10-pane casements. New entrance inserted c1989 to each elevation in former window opening. INTERIOR: probable original detail obscured by inserted late C20 ceilings. HISTORICAL NOTE: The stone-faced ground-floor is believed to relate to use of these premises (& part of No.62 adjoining) as a bank. Photographic evidence from c1910 shows the premises as the 'London City & Midland Bank' (later to become the 'Midland Bank'). Note: 61 High Street incorporates many of the features that typify the finest Georgian buildings of Worcester. In particular comparisons should be drawn with No.2 The Cross (qv) and 6-9 Cornmarket (qv).