The Judges Lodgings And Attached Front Piers Walls And Balustrades

The Judges' Lodgings and Attached Front Piers, Walls and Balustrades, Spa Road, Gloucester

A pair of semi-detached houses, now converted to flats and a restaurant. Built between 1833 and 1839 by Sir Robert Smirke for John Phillpotts, the building was originally known as Somerset House or Villas. In 1864 it was converted to provide lodgings for Assize Court judges on circuit.

The structure is constructed of brick with ashlar facing to the front, decorated wrought-iron balconies, slate roofs, and brick chimney stacks. The two houses are arranged as mirror-image blocks, each with its entrance in a recessed bay at either end. Single-storey lodges flank each side, and long wings extend to the rear on either side.

The exterior presents three storeys above a full basement. The symmetrical front comprises four central bays with a slight projection, flanked by recessed bays (1+4+1 arrangement). The basement and ground floors are rusticated ashlar, with the upper floors of plain ashlar. The basement storey supports a verandah across the four central bays.

The outer corners of the central and recessed bays are articulated with clasping pilasters that rise in stages corresponding to the basement, ground, first and second floors, marked by base moulding at ground-floor level and intermediate and impost mouldings. Pairs of shallow giant pilasters with Ionic capitals define the central bays on the first and second floors.

At first-floor level, a full-width cantilevered balcony extends across the four central bays, supported on shaped brackets and featuring delicate filigree wrought-iron standards, balustrade panels, and drop friezes, topped by a metal tent canopy roof. The first floor of each recessed bay also has a cantilevered balcony with similar wrought-iron details. At second-floor level, a raised band occupies the space between the pilasters. The pilasters support a deep continuous crowning entablature and blocking course, with a framed stone panel and flanking brackets positioned centrally above the blocking course.

The ground floor features entrance doorways in each recessed end bay, approached by stone steps flanked by decorative wrought-iron balustrades. Each doorway opens through a moulded stone architrave with narrow sidelights and a rectangular metal fanlight with decorative glazing bars, leading to a fielded six-panel door. The four central bays on the ground floor contain sashes with glazing bars (3x4 panes) in openings with rusticated flat-arch heads, providing access to the verandah. The second floor in the central bays and recessed end bays features taller sashes with glazing bars (3x5 panes) opening onto the balconies. The third floor has sashes with glazing bars (3x4 panes) in openings with projecting sills.

The lodge flanking No. 29 is one bay wide at ground and basement level, with pilasters supporting an entablature and framing a sash with glazing bars (3x4 panes). The lodge flanking No. 31 is a single storey with similar pilasters and entablature framing a doorway with moulded stone architrave and a twentieth-century door with glazed upper panels. Very tall stairwell sashes with glazing bars sit in openings with rubbed brick semicircular arched heads in the brick side walls of the recessed end bays.

The interior has not been fully inspected, but the entrance halls visible contain original features, and original staircases with swept handrails survive at the rear.

The stone-paved approaches to both entrances are flanked by rusticated ashlar piers with offset plinths and entablatures with blocking courses at each outer corner of the frontage. The responding pier for each entry has been demolished to the top of the plinth. Brick walls link the outer piers to the outer corners of the lodges, and similar decorative wrought-iron balustrades connect the bases of the inner piers to the corners of the central four-bay block.