Phoenix Centre And Attached Garden Wall

PHOENIX CENTRE AND ATTACHED GARDEN WALL

The Phoenix Centre is a community building on Beeches Road in Cirencester, formerly known as The Beeches House. It dates from the late 18th century with significant additions from the early and mid-19th centuries and early 20th century, and was converted to a community centre in 1946.

The building presents an irregular plan resulting from successive additions. The garden front features a stuccoed section with ashlar dressings, while the road front and part of the right side are coursed squared limestone. The garden front carries concrete tile roofing, whilst the road front has stone slate. The building is fitted with chimney stacks including left and right-end stacks to the garden front and an ashlar ridge stack with moulded top serving the porch on the road front.

The garden front contains a late 18th-century centrepiece which is three storeys and spans four windows. This pedimented section has a coped pediment and band course over the ground and first floors. The first floor contains four 6/6-pane sashes in plain reveals with stone cills; the second floor has three similar windows, with a pair of 20th-century fire escape doors opening to the second floor right. The ground floor has three 6/6-pane sashes and an eight-panel round-headed door in a flat beaded surround to the left.

An early 19th-century wing to the left of the garden front is two storeys and one window wide. It features a triple sash window with 2/2-6/6-2/2 panes and moulded timber mullions to the first floor, with a similar window to the ground floor. A shallow plinth, first-floor cill band, and moulded eaves cornice breaking forward over pilasters define this section, which concludes with a blocking course.

To the right of the garden front stands a three-storey one-window range, probably early 19th century, with a 6/6-pane sash to the first floor left side and an early 20th-century oriel window to the first floor. Further right is an early 20th-century two-storey one-window range with a gable facing.

The road front is executed in mid-19th-century Tudor style. It comprises a 2-storey, 2-window range with a gabled two-storey porch to the right. The porch has one gable and one gablet to the wing to the left. The first floor has one 2-light chamfered stone mullion-and-transom window with hoodmould to the porch and a similar 2-light chamfered stone mullion window to the left. Two similar 2-light windows occupy the ground floor. The porch features a pair of eight-panel doors each with a four-centred arched head, recessed behind a moulded surround with four-centred arched head with carved spandrels and hoodmould continuing over flanking single-light windows with four-centred arched heads. A keyed blind oval window sits in the porch gable, which has corbelled-out kneelers and a coped gable with an elaborate finial at the apex. A shallow plinth with chamfered top, moulded string over the ground floor, and flush quoins to the external angles of the mid-19th-century ranges complete this elevation.

The wing to the left of the road front contains a two-storey bay with coped parapet and 5-light chamfered stone mullion windows to both ground and first floors. A similar 2-light window occupies the first floor right. Moulded strings run over the ground and first floors, and the gable and gablet feature moulded coping and finials at the apex. The left side of the wing is executed in similar style.

The interior contains significant features spanning the late 18th to 19th centuries. A late 18th and early 19th-century stick baluster well staircase with mahogany grip handrail ascends from ground to first floor. The staircase hall contains a late 18th-century carved timber chimneypiece, whilst the first floor right on the garden front has a late 18th-century carved stone chimneypiece. The second floor centre of the garden front retains early 19th-century stone fireplaces to two rooms, with two further 19th-century fireplaces distributed across the second floor and one to the first floor in the right wing. Rooms to the ground and first floor left and first floor right of the garden front preserve early 19th and late 18th-century panelled doors, architraves, window joinery and skirtings. The ground and first floors to the left contain later 19th-century fireplaces, with that to the first floor elaborately decorated with floral plasterwork.

The wing to the road front is fitted with a mid-19th-century fireplace with overmantel and plaster cornices to its ground and first floor rooms. A late 19th-century back staircase serves this section.

The attached garden wall is constructed of coursed squared limestone with plinth and ashlar coping, standing approximately two metres high near the house. It rises over a round-headed opening fitted with a 20th-century iron gate and ramps down to approximately 1.6 metres high, where the material becomes coursed squared limestone rubble with ashlar coping.