Berkeley Arms And Outbuilding

BERKELEY ARMS AND OUTBUILDING, CHURCH STREET, TEWKESBURY

A hotel with attached outbuilding, probably originally a warehouse. The building dates from the late 15th or early 16th century, with additions around 1600 (including the warehouse) and 18th-century alterations. It is constructed with close-studded timber-framing incorporating mid rails and tension bracing, plaster panels, some brickwork, tile roofs, and brick stacks.

The plan is complex: a double-depth twin-gabled right-angle street block with a central chimney breast, covering a throughway to the right, with a long back wing including a jettied section into an alley. An open warehouse with a 2-bay rear section in two floors covers the alley.

The front block rises three storeys above a basement, with two gables. The upper windows are 4-light ovolo-mullioned casements to the gables, with a continuous run of 7+7-light casements at first floor under the jetty, with moulded courses above and below, all with leading. The ground floor, formerly also jettied, has been brought forward under a tiled pent roof. It displays two square oriel windows with a central part-glazed door under a transom-light. The oriels, mounted on small shaped brackets, are small-paned with a geometrical pattern and are probably mid-18th century in date. Under the right-hand unit is a plank access hatch to the basement. To the right is a 19th-century plank door in surround, giving access to the throughway and alley. On the ridge of the main roof, behind the gables, stands a large square brick stack.

In the throughway a 19th-century plank door with transom-light is set in a square-panel framed wall, behind which is a heavy beam on a bracket. At the back eaves is a 20th-century brick stack, and there is a plain square light to a roof-space dormer. In the alley is the heavy framed wall of the main building with a large 18-pane window rising above the ground-floor ceiling height, then a jetty above brick walling with two doors to transom-lights and various casements. The rear gable of the main block is timber-framed but faced with a 20th-century gable wall. The open outbuilding is separated from the alley by a 2-metre high brick wall; to the right is the framing of the back wall to Tudor Cottage. At the beginning of the two-storey outbuilding unit is a large brick ridge stack. The covered section of the alley has three transverse beams and heavy floor joists visible, and heavy corner posts with brackets. The back gable wall is mainly in 18th-century or earlier brickwork but with heavy cruck-like corner posts with remains of a tie-beam. Above a collar is gable framing, and there is a bressumer above the 5-light mullioned casement at ground-floor level. A small square loading opening is set centrally at first floor.

The basement, in two sections, has stone walls. The rear section, beyond the chimney breast (also in stone), has two deep transverse beams with stopped chamfers and housed chamfered floor joists. The ground-floor front has a corner post with bracket to the former jetty and a transverse beam with ovolo and hollow moulds. The rear room has a rebuilt fireplace in a 19th-century surround with a moulded post each side, carrying a transverse moulded beam with hollows and small roll-mould to flat soffit. A straight-flight 19th-century stair at the alley wall runs to a corridor with plastered inset over the large window below. The full-width front room has four heavy posts and a central transverse beam on heavy brackets, with heavy member square-panel party walls. The ceiling joists are early. The wing includes a heavy chamfered beam, and the back wall is in heavy framing with a jetty, faced externally with brick. The open warehouse is in two bays with queen-post and collar trusses on heavy cambered tie-beams to posts with brackets. There are some heavy stone corbels in the outer walls. A one-purlin roof with light wind bracing and rafters halved at the ridge complete the structure. The enclosed two-storey section at the outer end was not inspected, but it encloses a large brick stack.

Ground and first floors were originally lit by ranges of mullioned windows. The rear wing has a trimmed opening for a stair ladder to the second floor. This is one of a group of important early framed buildings at the east end of Church Street, including Nos 9 & 10 adjoining and Nos 15 & 16, all retaining important elements of original structure including a rare early example of a warehouse-type structure.