47, Market Square

BICESTER MARKET SQUARE SP5822S 3/65 No.47 30/03/70 GV II

Shown as No.48 on Ordnance Survey map. Substantial town house, now offices, 1698 on datestone, altered C19 and C20. Rendered timber framing with stucco dressings; concrete plain-tile and lead roofs with brick stacks. Double-depth plan. 3 storeys plus attics. Symmetrical 5-window front, with storeybands and rusticated stucco quoins, has 12-pane sashes to the upper windows, and has a central projecting 4-storey tower with similar windows at first and second floors, but with 3 keyed oval windows to the top stage formed in moulded limestone-rectangular frames, the front oval blind and inscribed "B/IM/1698". The turret has a moulded wooden cornice and an ogee tiled roof topped by a ball finial and wrought-iron weathervane. The hipped roof of the main range has a central lead flat and a wooden modillion cornice which returns on both sides. Ground floor has a central doorway with a moulded segmental-arched eared stucco architrave, flanked by small-pane shop windows built out below a deep moulded cornice (probably all C20). Left side has 2 sashes per floor above a C19 ground-floor extension with a large small-pane window. Right side has some narrower sashes and some altered windows. Rear has 3 truncated stacks, each of 3 linked shafts. Interior: upper floors of tower retain a dog-leg stair with heavy moulded handrail and closed string, barleytwist-on-vase balusters, and some turned pendants. With Nos.49 and 50 (q.v.), forms a prominent group on an island site. (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.VI, p.18; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.455).

Listing NGR: SP5855622377