8, Gloucester Street

No. 8 Gloucester Street is an inn that has been converted into a house. It dates back to the 15th century and was refronted and altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. The building is constructed of limestone rubble with ashlar inclusions and quoins, featuring a roughcast facade. It has two lateral brick stacks and a rear ridge stack, topped with a stone slate roof that includes a gabled rear wing and lower front eaves on the left-hand side. Originally, the building had a courtyard plan, but the western range was demolished in the mid-19th century.

The exterior is two storeys high, with a rear range that has an attic. It features a two-window range facing the street. There is a right-hand 20th-century doorway, with a recessed 6/6-pane sash window to the left and an 8/8-pane sash window above. Paired 6/6-pane sashes are located to the left in exposed frames. The rear east range is made of rubble with irregular quoins and random ashlar inclusions. The west elevation has a buttress indicating the extent of the original range, along with a three-light early 18th-century casement window with mullions. There is also a mid-18th-century window with a timber lintel, first-floor glass featuring a scratched inscription, and a 15th-century doorway with an oak lintel, adjacent to which are the remains of two circular bread ovens.

The interior has not been inspected but is reported to contain reconstructed 15th-century smoke-blackened collar trusses, a rear ground-floor stone fireplace with a moulded surround and a chamfered bressumer with tongue stops, and a first-floor that was formerly a single open room with ornate plasterwork.

Historically, this building may have been constructed by the Abbey as a hospitium, featuring a first-floor dormitory, a right-hand through-carriageway beneath an overhanging passage, and service buildings to the south and west. Gloucester Cottage, located on Oliver's Lane behind No. 10 Gloucester Street, may represent the former southwest range of the inn. No. 8 was first recorded as an inn in 1618 and remained operational until its closure in 1955.