40, Foregate Street

SO8455SE 620-1/12/258

WORCESTER FOREGATE STREET (West side) No.40

(Formerly listed under FRIAR STREET)

22/05/54

GV II

House, now shop and flat. Late C18 with range to rear of c1700 and later additions and alterations including those to ground floor of C19 and mid-C20. Pinkish-brown brick in Flemish bond with flat arches to windows of red gauged brick; stone sills, cornice and copings; stucco over brick to ground floor; concealed roof and brick ridge stack with pots.

Three storeys, five first-floor windows and with extensive range to rear. First and second floors have 1/1 horned sashes, taller to first floor, all in plain reveals and with sills and flat arches of gauged brick. Crowning frieze, ovolo cornice and coped parapet. Ground floor: entrance at right: 4-panel door, the lower two panels flush beaded, with fanlight, in plain reveals and doorcase with half-engaged Doric columns with entablature and open pediment with armorial cartouche. Otherwise ground floor has plate-glass shop front with outer Doric pilasters and continuous entablature.

INTERIOR: ground floor altered, otherwise not inspected.

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, the City Museum and Library, and Nos 15, 19, 22, 23, 24, 28, Nos 33-46 (consecutive) and No.49 Foregate Street (qqv) form a good group.

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