5 And 7, Southgate Street

5 and 7 Southgate Street is a large town house located in Launceston, dating from the early to mid-18th century, though it may have been rebuilt from a 17th-century timber-framed house that jettied on each floor and side. The building features a red brick façade laid in Flemish bond over a rubble base, with flat keyed arches and a rag slate roof. The front has a pediment over the central three bays, which are slightly projected, along with modillion eaves and a pediment cornice. The house has a double-depth plan and stands three storeys high with a nearly symmetrical five-window front. The original windows are hornless sashes with thick glazing bars, featuring square windows on the second floor and taller windows below. The ground floor includes a full-width early 20th-century transomed shop front with leaded glazed top-lights, end pilasters, slender mullions, and a fascia with a moulded cornice and blinds. The rear of the building mirrors the symmetrical five-window design of the front, retaining original sashes. The right-hand return features an original Venetian stair sash and a smaller sash for the back stair. Inside, there are many original 18th-century moulded ceiling cornices, some with dentils, including one in the stair hall that has Tuscan columns at the window. The right-hand room has fielded panelling (now in the passage), a modillion cornice, and a ribbed ceiling with concave corners, a central quatrefoil, and arabesques. The partitions are made of jointed and pegged oak studwork with later brick nogging, and the ceiling beams have dragon beams in each corner of the upper floors, indicating possible jettied origins. The building also has an 18th-century oak roof structure. A plaque on the front of the house notes that it was the birthplace of Philip Gidley King on April 23, 1758, who was appointed Governor of New South Wales in 1800 and sent Lieutenant Colonel Paterson to establish Launceston, Tasmania, in 1804.