33, Westgate Street

Merchant's house, now shop and former dwelling, at 33 Westgate Street, Gloucester. Probably 15th century, refronted in the mid-18th century, with minor 19th and 20th century alterations. The building is constructed of timber frame and brick above a stone and brick cellar. A narrow front of one bay masks the former gable-end of a right-angled plan framed range four bays deep.

The exterior presents three storeys above the cellar, which was originally a medieval undercroft. The front elevation features a simple shop-front with a recessed glazed doorway on the right and a fascia with a moulded frame above. Each of the upper floors has a central horned sash with a central glazing bar, set within a flat-arched opening with a slightly projecting and raised keystone and a projecting stone sill. The former crowning cornice has been removed. The rear elevation exposes a gable with hung slate cladding above the adjoining property.

The cellar, originally the undercroft of the medieval house, is accessed by a separate entrance from Westgate Street. It has stone rubble side walls with evidence of stone springing for a segmental barrel vault, mostly rebuilt in brick, with some portions removed later. The side walls bond with a stone rubble front wall containing a central opening, now serving as access to a pavement light but originally the doorway from the street to the undercroft. On the west side of the opening a rebated jamb with an outer hollow roll moulding is bonded with the inner wall face. Detached stones with the same moulding remain in the cellar from the east jamb, removed when service pipes were inserted in the 20th century. The rear wall is brick with a 19th century stove set within a segmental brick arched recess.

On the ground floor behind the shop-front head is the moulded bressumer which supported the former first-floor jetty of the original timber-framed front. Otherwise the ground floor was relined in the 20th century, with timber stairs to the rear left.

On the first and second floors, projections in the wall faces indicate the positions of the principal posts of the timber frame, divided by a central cross partition on each floor. On the second floor, indications of a substantial curved brace appear in the second bay from the front on the west wall and on the east side of the rear wall. The framing of the east wall was removed when the adjoining property, No. 31 Westgate Street, was rebuilt in the mid-18th century. To support the rafters, the wall plate was retained on timber knee brackets inserted to each side of the chimney-stack projecting from the west wall of No. 31 within the front bays of No. 33, and on iron straps within the rear bays. The soffit of the wall plate has retained mortices for bracing to tie beams. The second floor is open into the roof space to the presumed level of the collar ties to the trusses. The exposed portion of the truss between the two northern bays has a slightly cambered tie beam with its original pegged knee brace on the east side, indicated by the mortice in the underside of the beam.

This building is a rare and substantially complete example of a small, late medieval merchant's town house with its undercroft intact.