Numbers 25 And 25A Church Street And 1 Warns Court

A row of three shops in one building with residential accommodation above and in the rear wings, which form part of the former brewery site. The main elevation is an 18th-century refronting of 17th-century and possibly 16th-century rear buildings.

The main front is rendered rubble stone with a parapet and Cotswold stone slate roof, featuring a small stone end stack to the left and a tall central ridge stack with moulded cornice. The rear elevations and wings are constructed in limestone rubble.

The buildings comprise a long front range running north-south along Church Street, with wings running east-west to the rear: two wings behind number 25 and one behind number 25a. There are three gabled ranges behind, with a carriage arch left of centre.

The main elevation is three storeys with seven windows. The three windows to the left are twin casements, while the four to the right are set as two pairs of plate-glass sashes. The ground floor has three 20th-century shop fronts. The carriage arch has chamfered stone quoins and a timber square-framed wall to the left for number 25a.

The rear elevation shows two conjoined cross-wings behind number 25, three storeys high, with a small rectangular opening in the apex of the gable. The windows are mostly multi-paned casements, except for a single eight-over-eight sash window to the ground floor. Behind 25a is a wing in two stages with a conjoined building to the south. These three elements, which may have originated as outbuildings rather than domestic quarters, make up 1 Warns Court. All three date from the later 16th or 17th century, constructed from limestone rubble with large dressed limestone quoins. The range behind 25a has steeply-pitched Cotswold stone slate roofs, while the conjoined building has a hipped roof covered in Welsh slate. All windows have timber lintels, now with uPVC replacement windows set in the earlier openings. The northern elevation has dove-holes in a decorative pattern on either side of the central first-floor window.

Number 25 and 25a have retail units on the ground floors, with 25a retaining original fireplaces with bressumers. The first and second floors of number 25 have been converted to apartments, accessed via a doorway under the carriage arch with a modern staircase rising to the upper floors. The first-floor apartment to the front retains chamfered beams with run-out stops and two original fireplaces: one with a chamfered stone surround, the other with a cambered bressumer and chamfered and stopped stone uprights. The ground floor of the rear wing to the north has large exposed beams with chamfers and bar-and-run-out stops dating from the late 16th or early 17th century. The first and second floors of 25a are occupied by a flat, accessed from an external staircase in the carriage opening. The ground-floor room in the southern building of 1 Warns Court has a wide fireplace with a chamfered bressumer, and exposed stone quoins to the chimney breast above. The stair is modern and unlikely to be in its original position. A brick-lined cellar exists under the main range.

The buildings date from at least the 17th century, probably from the 16th century. Their form is typical for townhouses in Tetbury at this date, with relatively narrow frontages to Church Street and long ranges to the rear. The elevations to Church Street, situated between the parish church and the 17th-century market house, originally had steep gables in the local vernacular style but were refronted and raised slightly in the 18th century. They were given a rendered, classically-inspired façade with sash windows and a parapet. The attic storey was remodelled slightly to create a fully-habitable second floor. The ranges to the rear were largely unaltered at this date and retain their gabled wings.

The site has long been used for malting and brewing, with industrial processes housed in outbuildings behind the houses fronting Church Street. In the 19th century, the buildings formed part of an extensive brewery and malting complex owned by the Warn and Witchell families. The brewing industry was the only large-scale industry in Tetbury in the later 19th century, having developed from the 18th-century malting industry. The Warns and Witchells originated as maltsters but later took up brewing on adjoining sites in Church Street: one on the plot now occupied by 25 and 25a Church Street and Warns Court, and another immediately to the south, now the site of Old Brewery Lane and the Church Street car park. The Barton Steam Brewery and the Dolphin Brewery were merged around 1913, when the Warn family took over the Witchells' brewery. The resulting firm continued until 1931, when the business was voluntarily wound up. The brewery site was redeveloped in the 1970s, with the buildings fronting Church Street and their rear ranges retained as houses, the former stable range converted to residential use, and the industrial buildings demolished to create a car park and new housing. The ground floors of 25 and 25a were converted to retail use, while the living accommodation above number 25, now known as Chester House, was divided into four apartments. The rear range of 25a appears to have been a separate dwelling from at least the mid-20th century, known as Dove Cottage, before becoming part of the Warns Court development in the 1970s.