88 And 88A, Church Street

This is a pair of houses with shops at ground floor level, located in Church Street, Tewkesbury. The core of the building dates to the late 15th century, originally a town house which was later subdivided and extended with a 16th-century rear wing. The ground floor shop fronts have been altered in the 19th century. The structure is timber-framed with tension bracing, some areas rendered, and has a tile roof with brick stacks.

The building’s layout is a right-angle plan with a hipped roof fronting the street, and a stack against the side wall. Originally a single property, it featured a full-width parlour on both the ground and first floors, with a lateral staircase connecting to a long, deep, two-storey service wing belonging to number 88. The front elevation is distinguished by two jettied stages and a hipped roof. The rear presents heavy braced framing to a second-floor jetty, and number 88 has a long timber-framed wing.

The front of the building has two windows at the second floor, within a rendered wall. The first floor has a continuous range of three by four-light casement windows with moulded bars and a transom, set above a shallow breast wall of exposed close studding. The ground floor currently has plate-glass shop fronts and a 19th-century part-glazed door in number 88, and a six-pane shop front and part-glazed door in number 88A, with a plank door providing access to a throughway. A moulded fascia runs above the ground floor and above the first-floor windows, with a plain wood fascia band at the eaves. The rear includes a brick-nogged jettied stage with two 2-light casements at the second floor. The wing to number 88 displays tension-braced framing; brickwork to the ground floor, and three-light casement windows with transoms, are from 18th-century remodelling. A small ridge stack sits atop the front block, while brick stacks are found in the left gable wall and on the wing, with the gable wall stack featuring large square ashlar blocks below the eaves.

The interior of number 88 only was inspected. It contains substantial timber framing and beams, with an arched doorway linking the front block to the rear wing. Notable interior features include large 15th-century fireplaces on both the ground and first floors. The ground floor fireplace is particularly significant, featuring a large ashlar fire hood on deep, plain ashlar cheeks with shaped brackets; the cheeks were likely concealed by raising the floor level. The first floor has a similar, but smaller, ashlar fireplace. The front block is believed to represent a storyed late medieval solar block, with the fireplaces being unusual and distinctive, showing influences more commonly found in French architecture than in English examples.