Robert Raikes' House

Robert Raikes' House, Southgate Street, Gloucester

A merchant's house dating from the mid to late 16th century, now comprising a shop (No.36) and public house called The Golden Cross (No.38). The building incorporates a substantial early 18th-century brick addition at the rear and has undergone internal alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The front elevation presents three storeys with an attic and cellars. The principal timber-framed ranges, built in three bays, are jettied at the first, second, and attic-floor levels, creating three cross-gabled bays above. The ground floor has a late 20th-century shop-front to No.36 and a mid-20th-century bar-room front to No.38 with large glazed windows between timber storey posts.

The upper floors display excellent examples of West Country decorative timber-framing. Each bay is divided vertically by secondary posts and horizontally into three zones of small panels. The lower panels feature ogee braces, the intermediate panels have quadrant braces at the angles, and the upper panels are plain. The attic cross-gables show a similar pattern with small panels and quadrant braces. This framing pattern, probably originally painted, is repeated on the return end walls at second-floor level. The first-floor jetty is supported by consoles, whilst the second and attic floors rest upon curved knee braces off the storey posts, with moulded bressumers above. The gables have scalloped and pierced barge boards topped with turned spike finials.

The upper floors contain horned sashes in the end bays (dating to the 19th century) and similar sashes flanking central framing panels in the central bays. The attic cross-gables each have a small pair of casements above the panel zones.

The rear elevation is two storeys with an attic, comprising four bays with a single bay to the right, and features a raised band at first-floor level and crowning modillion cornice. The ground floor has replacement early 19th-century sashes with slender glazing bars (3x4 panes), whilst the first floor retains original sashes with thicker glazing bars (3x5 panes). Four gabled roof dormers with paired casements light the attic.

The exterior walls are of timber frame with wattle and daub panels and brick, under a slate roof with two brick chimney stacks featuring octagonal shafts.

Internally, the ground floor of No.38 has been largely opened as a public house bar, with exposed beams and joists supported by posts, some of which are reused timbers. The central bay behind the front range contains an early 18th-century open well staircase with quarter landings, modified in the early 19th century with a stick balustrade but retaining raised and fielded dado panels from the 18th century. At the first-floor landing stands a two-bay timber screen with arches on pilasters, though the original central column has been removed.

A room in the early 18th-century rear range includes a bed alcove and features original moulded cornice, part of a fielded panel dado, and full-height panelling with moulded frames on one wall. Other rooms in this 18th-century range are believed to retain similar details. The central 16th-century range displays exposed timber-framing in several walls, together with early inserted 18th-century features including a stone chimney-piece with an eared architrave surround.

The principal rooms on the upper floors of the front range each contain a projecting brick chimney breast with a wide stone-framed fireplace having moulded jambs and a shallow Tudor-arched head. Several bridging beams are chamfered.

No.36 on the north side contains a circular stair with timber newel post and timber treads. A double purlin roof covers the front range, whilst the early 18th-century rear range has a raised cruck roof, possibly representing an earlier frame reused. The cellars have walls of rubble or brick, with brick barrel vaults.

Historically, the Gloucester Journal was first published from 36/38 Southgate Street by Robert Raikes Senior on 9 April 1722. Raikes relocated his printing office to this address in 1758, moving it from Blackfriars. The building represents a notable example of a late 16th-century town house, with ornamental panelling in the West Midlands carpentry tradition. It is designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.