Addisons Folly

Addison's Folly is the surviving portion of a former house, now offices, located on the south side of what was once Bell Lane in Gloucester. Built in 1864 for Thomas Fenn Addison, a lawyer, it incorporates some masonry from the demolished Franciscan Friary (Greyfriars) site. The building consists of a gabled range running east-west, originally a wing at the rear of a larger house, with a tower attached to the south side at the west end. The tower, three stories tall, features a raised band at first-floor level, a crowning cornice, and a crenellated parapet with weathered coping. The west side has a doorway within a doorcase with pilasters and entablature. The south side has a small square sash window on the ground floor and a tall sash window on the second floor, both with flat arched heads and key stones. The third floor has tall, semicircular arched sashes on all sides, all contained within similar openings with plain architraves, projecting sills on moulded end-brackets, and raised keystones in the arches. The adjoining range has a stone-coped, open pedimental gable with moulded verges. The east end of this range has a doorway with 20th-century French doors on the ground floor and a tripartite sash window on the first floor, with a larger tripartite sash window extending into the gable. The south side of the range has two sash windows on the ground floor and a sash window to the right on the first floor. The interior was not inspected. A plaque on the west wall commemorates Thomas Fenn Addison's construction of the folly in memory of Robert Raikes and Thomas Stock, who established a Sunday school for poor children in 1780.