Victoria House

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 17 April 2023 to update the name and address and reformat the text to current standards

SO8455SE 620-1/12/269

WORCESTER FOREGATE STREET (West side) Nos.63-66 (Consecutive) Victoria House and 1 Shaw Street

(Formerly listed as Nos.63-66 (Consecutive) Victoria House, FOREGATE STREET (West side) previously listed under FRIAR STREET, formerly listed as FRIAR STREET (West side) Nos.62, 64 AND 66 Victoria House)

22/05/54

GV II Terrace of four houses, now shops and offices. Late C18 with later additions and alterations including 1960s ground floor shop front. Red/brown brick in irregular Flemish bond, ashlar dressings, concealed slate roof, central, off-centre right and right end-stacks, all with oversailing details and pots. Double depth, L-plan.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATION: four storeys, ten (2:2:3:3) first floor windows. From first floor to full-height are raised-rusticated quoins surmounted by continuous frieze, cyma-recta cornice and low parapet. First and second floor have 6/6 sashes, third floor has 3/3, all in flush frames, all have flat gauged brick arches with raised keystones, those to first and second floor have cornices, second and third floor windows have sills. Ground floor has plate glass windows and doors.

Left-return elevation (Shaw Street): Stack at west end. Four window range, ground floor left is in chamfered rustication, quoins to left corner. First floor windows are 6/6, second floor windows are 8/8, third floor are 4/4, all in plain reveals with sills. Part-glazed door with fanlight in Doric-style pilaster door case with incised Greek-key mouldings. C20 casement window to left has flat voussoired arch, further C20 flush doors to far left with similar arch raised above.

INTERIOR: retains original joinery including panelled shutters.

HISTORICAL NOTE: 63-66 is believed to have been the Hop Pole coaching inn, (the Hop Pole was constructed by 1749 (Worcester Cathedral Library, ref A31 folio 114). Victoria House was established in 1842 as a department store specialising in drapery items, it traded on both ground- and first-floors and was still operating in 1903. Pevsner refers to Foregate Street as, "the street richest in Georgian buildings." Occupies an important corner site.

(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire: Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 332; Worcester Daily Times: Worcester at Work: Worcester: 1903: 35).