Fountain Inn

A public house, mostly rebuilt as a coffee house in the late 17th century but retaining part of a late 16th-century range, with 18th-century alterations and remodelling around 1900. The building is constructed of brick and timber frame under roughcast render with stone details, plain tile roof, and brick stack.

The main range is set back on the east side of a courtyard behind Nos 51 and 55 Westgate Street, with entry to the yard through a passage below the west end of No. 51 Westgate Street (not included) and through a gateway on the east side of Berkeley Street. A secondary range on the south side of the yard is linked to the main range by a short 20th-century infill block. The major portion of the main block is a mid to late 17th-century gable-end parallel-range block with the remains of a late 16th-century timber-framed range extending from the northern gable-end wall.

The main range is two storeys with an attic and cellar. The front elevation features an offset plinth, a moulded band at first-floor level, a modillion eaves cornice, and large, widely spaced strip quoins at the outer angles. The principal doorway to the left has a moulded architrave and entablature with pediment above, a four-panel door, and fanlight with rectangular leadlight glazing in the upper panels and fanlight. The doorway is flanked by narrow single-light windows. An oriel window to the ground floor on the right has timber mullions and upper transom, with two lights to the front and canted sidelights with casements. On the first floor there are symmetrical timber-framed casements, each with a central mullion and upper transom, and at the centre an elongated vertical octagonal window in a heavy timber frame with projecting brick surround. A single-storey, lean-to extension of around 1900 was added against the late 16th-century wing at the north end. All casement windows have rectangular leadlight glazing of around 1900.

The interior of the main range has had most ground-floor partitions removed to form a large bar room with staircase and service rooms at the rear. An early to mid 17th-century dog-leg staircase has closed strings, square newels, turned balusters, and a finger-grip handrail. At the southern end of the bar room, on the inner lateral wall, is a large fireplace with a mid to late 17th-century carved and moulded stone chimney-piece of exceptional quality. This features a heavy bolection mould architrave surround surmounted by a deep pulvinated frieze carved with scrolled acanthus and a moulded cornice. A large, projecting and extended keyblock carved with foliage breaks the frieze and architrave. Below is a brick-walled and vaulted cellar.

The south range contains a large reception or assembly room on the first floor, approached by a stair and entrance lobby within an extension with a cat-slide roof on the north side. The entrance doorway from the yard is set in a slight projection surmounted by an open segmental pediment framing a block carved in bas-relief showing King William III mounted on a horse, inscribed below "GUILIAMUS III" and above "Dieu defend le droit". On the first floor to the right of the entrance extension is a large 18th-century sash window with glazing bars in a 4x3 pane arrangement. The interior was refitted in the 20th century.

The inn is recorded as a hostelry in the Abbey Rental of 1455 and was converted to a coffee house and tavern in 1672, which is the probable date of the rebuilding of the main block. The full extent of alterations around 1900 cannot be determined without further investigation. Traditionally, the inn is associated with a visit to Gloucester by King William III, who is reputed to have ridden his horse up the stair leading from the courtyard to the upper room of the south range to show his contempt for a Jacobite club that met there.