24, Foregate Street

WORCESTER

SO8455SE FRIAR STREET 620-1/12/249 (East side) 08/3/74 No.24

GV II

House, now offices. c1830 with later additions and alterations. Red brick in Flemish bond with stucco to ground floor; stone architraves and cornice, slate roof and truncated brick left end and rear stacks with pot at left; cast-iron balcony. Single depth plan with rear stairhall and rear range to left. 3 storeys, 3 first-floor windows. Stucco detailing includes horizontal rustication to ground floor. Ground floor has two 6/1 sashes. Entrance at right a 6-raised-and-fielded-panel door with overlight and panelled reveals (with lower flush panels). First floor has 6-pane French windows and divided overlights in plain reveals and with tooled architraves with cornices on console brackets. Continuous balcony with double-scrolled balusters. Second floor has 3/6 sashes in tooled architraves and with sills. Double ovolo and step moulded cornice. Left return: end entrance a 4-panel door with Doric pilasters, entablature and cornice. 4/4 sashes in plain reveals and with sills. INTERIOR: entrance hall has moulded cornice with acanthus modillions and fleurons with frieze, ceiling rose. Openwell staircase has carved tread ends and wreathed handrail with turned balusters. First floor has marble fireplace to front room, cornice has fleurons; 4-panel doors. 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 good 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).