Kings Board, Hillfield Gardens

GLOUCESTER

SO8418NW LONDON ROAD 844-1/10/187 (North side) 23/01/52 King's Board, Hillfield Gardens (Formerly Listed as: LONDON ROAD (North side) King's Board in the grounds of Hillside Gardens)

GV II*

Gazebo. In its present form probably late C18; built originally in the grounds of the former Marybone House near the Quay re-using C14 arcading and other architectural details said to have come from the King's Board, a medieval market house which stood in the centre of Westgate Street and demolished in 1780; moved from Marybone House to a garden in Barton Street, then in mid C19 to the grounds of Tibberton Court; given to the City of Gloucester in 1936 and re-erected as a feature in Hillfield Gardens. Limestone ashlar with moulded and carved details, flat composition roof. PLAN: a small decagonal building; on the south side an open arcade of five bays standing on a stone base above three stone steps set in a semi-circle which stop against short wing walls to east and west; the north side is a solid wall of plain ashlar. EXTERIOR: the reset C14 arcade has slender moulded piers set on moulded bases and cinqefoiled arches with trefoiled sub-cusps; the angles of the decagon occur at the crowns of the arches where the joints have been re-cut to fit, each double spandrel is a single stone crisply carved in bas-relief with a scene of Christ's ministry: the Entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the scourging of Christ, the Resurrection and the Flagellation; above the arcade a crowning cornice with a hollow roll into which four fleurons above each double spandrel and two above each of the responding end spandrels have been inserted; the cornice and the rear wall a low crenellated parapet with a continuous moulded weathering. HISTORY: the King's Board is reputed to have been given to the City of Gloucester by King Richard II and was used as a butter market in the late 16th century. There is also a (doubtful) tradition that it was used as a preaching pulpit. The site of this building in Westgate Street was examined in a restrictive survey by the Gloucester Archaeological Unit in 1991 when the foundations of a rectangular building were identified in the same position as an arcaded market building shown in Kip's

View of Gloucester of 1712. (Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch. Society: Medland MH: The So-called King's Board at Tibberton Court near Gloucester: 339-343).

Listing NGR: SO8425618976