59 AND 61, WESTGATE STREET (See details for further address information)

Two shops and town house, now functioning as a cafe and dwelling. Dating from around 1720 with significant alterations and extensions in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building occupies the corner of Westgate Street and Berkeley Street in Gloucester.

The structure is constructed of brick with dressed stone details, featuring a timber crowning entablature and slate roof with brick stacks. The plan is characterised by a single-depth front block with an end gable, a wing projecting to the rear right, and 19th-century infill construction in the former yard at the rear left. An original stair turret projects at the rear of the front range, later reduced in height and topped with a gable roof. A service wing at the rear was subsequently divided to create Nos. 1 and 3 Berkeley Street, now reincorporated as the rear part of the cafe and dwelling.

The front elevation presents three storeys, an attic and cellar. The former shop at No. 59 on the left now serves as the cafe entrance and has a late 20th-century front. The former shop at No. 61 on the right retains a late 19th-century shop-front, which is returned with a canted angle into Berkeley Street and features slender cast-iron stanchions. The shop fascias are framed by moulded consoles. The upper floors display five bays of dark red brick in Flemish bond with stone details painted white. Raised bands with upper edge mouldings run at second and attic-floor levels, and the building is crowned by a deep, richly moulded entablature with Corinthian modillions. Each upper floor contains four sashes of similar size with glazing bars of 3 by 4 panes in openings with rubbed brick flat-arched heads topped with raised key stones below the raised bands, and with projecting moulded stone sills. Three roof dormers to the attic have pedimental gables and double casements.

On the Berkeley Street elevation, the end gable of the front range rises to the left, with a chimney-stack projecting on a corbel from first-floor level at the right-hand angle. The service wing to the right comprises two storeys and an attic with a doorway at either end. The left doorway, formerly serving No. 1 Berkeley Street, features a moulded stone architrave surround enclosing a semicircular fanlight with small key block and a 19th-century four-panel door. The right doorway has a 20th-century four-panel door. Between these doorways on the ground floor are three windows with segmental arched heads; the two windows to the right have 19th-century sashes, while the window to the left has a 20th-century fixed light. On the first floor are three large window openings with segmental heads, the openings at each end fitted with 18th-century sashes with glazing bars of 4 by 4 panes, while the central opening is partially blocked with a 19th-century sash inserted on the left side.

Interior features include ground-floor rooms relining from the 20th century serving the cafe and service spaces. Within the stair turret at the rear of the main block, an early 18th-century dog-leg staircase with closed strings and capped newels extends from the first floor to the attic, retaining several surviving barleysugar balusters. The first-floor room on the east side contains raised and fielded panels within window embrasures. A double purlin roof with ridge piece spans above the attic. The first-floor room of the service wing features an early 19th-century chimney-piece with a reeded architrave surround and corner stops. An 18th-century brick-walled and vaulted cellar survives. Some evidence of timber-framing in the rear wall of the main range may indicate surviving structure from an earlier building.