5 And 7, Southgate Street

LAUNCESTON

SX32843384 SOUTHGATE STREET 660-1/4/127 (East side) 27/02/50 Nos.5 AND 7

GV II*

Formerly known as: Nos.5 AND 5A SOUTHGATE STREET. Large town house. Early/mid C18 but possibly a re-walling of a C17 timber-framed house jettied to each floor and each side. Red brick face laid to Flemish bond on rubble; flat keyed arches; rag slate roof with pediment to front over central 3 bays broken forward; modillion eaves and pediment cornice. Double-depth plan. 3 storeys; nearly symmetrical 5-window front. Original hornless sashes with thick glazing bars: square windows to 2nd floor, tall windows below. Ground floor has full-width early C20 transomed shop front with leaded glazed top-lights; end pilasters, slender mullions; fascia with moulded cornice and blinds. Rear is a similar symmetrical 5-window garden front with original sashes. Right-hand return has original Venetian stair sash and smaller sash to back stair on its right. INTERIOR: many original C18 moulded ceiling cornices, some with dentils, including that of stair hall with Tuscan columns to window; right-hand room with fielded panelling to right (now in passage), modillion cornice and ribbed ceiling with concave corners, central quatrefoil and arabesques. Jointed and pegged oak studwork partitions, with later brick nogging, and ceiling beams with dragon beam to each corner of upper floors suggesting possible jettied origins; C18 oak roof structure. Plaque on front of house records that this was the birthplace on 23rd April 1758 of Philip Gidley King appointed Governor of New South Wales 1800 and who sent Lt. Col. Paterson to found Launceston, Tasmania in 1804.

Listing NGR: SX3323684570