9, Oxford Street

MALMESBURY

ST9387 OXFORD STREET 758-1/4/267 (South side) 01/07/76 No.9

GV II*

Guild hall, divided into pair of cottages until 1990 restoration, now cafe. C15, altered C16 and C17. Open hall plan at right angles to street. MATERIALS: rubble with ashlar dressings, stone slate roof half-hipped to the front and with lower side cross gables, the left-hand one with a lateral stack topped with brick. EXTERIOR: 2 storey; 2-window range. The gable has a central boarded door, with C19 shop windows each side with 12 panes, and a 3/3-pane sash above the door. The left return has chamfered ashlar dressings to a small window near the front, dressings to a blocked window within the stack, and two C19 3/3-pane sashes toward the rear. The stack includes re-used ashlar blocks. Small terracotta finial above the hip. INTERIOR: open hall with a left-hand chimney breast rebuilt 1990, battered above the fireplace; 4 collar trusses facing S with chamfered arch braces, on timber pads with a diagonal threaded ridge beam and vertical ridge joint, and wind braces to the 2 lower registers. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: cast-iron name plate inscribed MARKET LANE to the return. HISTORICAL NOTE: probably Guild House of the Merchants Guild of the Alderman and Burgesses, granted charter by Henry IV in 1411, and the building may date from then. Inserted late C16 floor with chamfered ceiling beams removed in restoration. A significant surviving example of this building type. (Stirling D: Secular medieval buildings in Malmesbury, Wilts, 1150-1547: 1986-: 8; Victoria History of the Counties of England: Crowley DA: Wiltshire: 1991-: 134).

Listing NGR: ST9336087214