1 Silver Street and 71-72 Trumpington Street

1 Silver Street and 71-72 Trumpington Street

This building was designed and built between 1868 and 1869 by W M Fawcett as his own home, with a tailors' shop occupying the ground floor. The structure is mostly built of brick, with a rendered timber-framed section to the rear and a roof covered in plain tiles.

The ground floor and first floors are roughly square in plan, while the upper storeys are L-shaped. The original separation of domestic and retail space survives, though residential access is now gained via Sherlock Court. The building is logically planned with accommodation facing the street while circulation and servicing is kept at the rear.

The roof form is varied with multiple ridges, responding to the L-shaped roof plan. Two broad pedimented gables overshoot the south elevation, and two tall dormers rise from the bay windows of the east elevation.

The south elevation faces Silver Street. Pebble-dashed gables above a moulded eaves cornice support a continuous rail held by metal brackets. The two principal upper storeys are walled in red brick laid in English bond. Each structural bay has a two-storey oriel bay window supported by three carved corbels that form part of the shop front at ground floor. Between the fenestration at each storey is a panel of pebble-dash render. The original domestic entrance is at ground floor on the left: a folding pair of four-panel doors with a moulded roundel for a knocker, the panels having a triangular section. The eight-paned overlight and wooden panel to the left were once continuous features of the shop front.

The east elevation faces Trumpington Street. Though similar to the south elevation, the oriel windows here are narrower, supported on two corbels rather than three, and flow into the dormers of the attic storey. On the left hand side, a 1957 Richardson Candle is attached to the red English-bond brickwork.

A continuous timber fascia and cornice runs across the ground floor of both the Silver Street and Trumpington Street elevations, meeting above a canted corner which forms the entrance. The doorway and square-paned overlight are framed between carved gothic braces featuring a dragon (left, possibly for Saint Margaret) and the arms of Queens' College (right).

Carved corbels beneath the cornice feature heraldic symbols associated with Queens' College and Margaret of Anjou, arranged left to right: a boar's head badge; the monogram of W M Fawcett; barbels (fish); Lancastrian roses; the construction date 1869; an eagle; alerions; French lilies; English lions; and a boar's head.

On Trumpington Street the original shop front survives intact. There are brick pilasters with plinths of the same height as the wooden stallrisers, interrupted by basement windows. At the top of the pilasters, above a limestone band, there are timber panels matching the height of the square-paned transom-lights. Tall rectangular panes of plate glass fill the shop windows, separated by slender vertical glazing bars.

On Silver Street the arrangement has been altered. The upper parts of the pilasters have been replaced with terracotta cartouches, two inscribed with the number '1' for the address. The transom-lights and glazing bars have been removed and replaced with large single sheets of plate glass, framed beneath four-centred arches and small gothic bosses. On the left the arch crosses behind a slim retained pilaster.

The rear elevation is concealed at ground floor where it adjoins other parts of Sherlock Court. At first floor there is a late twentieth-century door and window in a square brick-built outshot infilling the otherwise L-shaped plan. A slender bay of nineteenth-century gault brick in Flemish bond rises three storeys on the north side of the building, with a small twentieth-century window at its base and another in the attic within a nineteenth-century opening. A blocked nineteenth-century window opening and the scar of a former adjoining roof can be seen at the second floor, above an incised stone reading 'PERMISSIVE LIGHT BELOW THIS LINE', suggesting a claim to ancient lights per the 1832 Prescription Act. Above the square outshot in the L-shaped corner of the building there are two storeys of pebble-dashed render over a timber-framed wall. The fenestration is irregular, with three windows at second floor level and one in the attic.

The shop interior is now a unified space but retained stub walls indicate an earlier plan form. The north wall now opens on to the former carriage arch of the adjoining Grade II listed building.

The residential parts of the building retain a high proportion of their original skirtings, cornices, doors and architraves. Many of the doors (six-panelled, three-over-three) have had later boards attached to the backs as a fire precaution.

The original domestic entrance hall has an internal porch with a secondary door that has lost the glazing originally present in its upper two panels. The pine flooring laid in a herringbone pattern has been covered with linoleum. On the west side of the hall there are two arched niches now somewhat obscured by the heating system.

The original oak staircase runs through all floors and survives intact, though coverings and metal trims have been applied to the treads, risers and nosings. The stairs have chunky chamfered newel posts and slightly elongated ball finials, closed strings, turned vase-shaped balusters, and grip handrails.

At each floor the chimney breasts remain in place and most still possess their original fireplaces. Grates remain in individual fireplaces in the basement and attic. The first and second floors were of higher status, with moulded fire surrounds and overmantels, high skirtings and moulded cornices. The two first floor rooms facing Trumpington Street originally connected by a now-blocked in-situ set of folding doors. The attic storey is generally plain though retaining doors, chimney breasts, and a single fireplace.

Since 1944 basic WCs, kitchenettes and communal spaces have been introduced to each of the residential floors, as well as fire screens around the staircase. The corner room at second floor level has had an ensuite WC inserted.

The windows, particularly those facing Trumpington Street and Silver Street, have mostly been replaced with double-glazed wooden frames that replicate the original fenestration and incorporate horizontal sliding sashes. Original glazing survives in the multi-pane leaded transom-lights of the first floor rooms, to which secondary glazing has been applied.