88 And 88A, Church Street

TEWKESBURY

SO8932 CHURCH STREET 859-1/6/143 (North side) 04/03/52 Nos.88 AND 88A

GV II*

Pair of houses, shops under. Late C15 town house, later subdivided with C16 rear wing; ground floor underbuilt C19. Close-studded timber-frame with tension bracing; partly rendered; tile roof; brick stacks. PLAN: side-entry right-angle plan, hipped to street and with stack against side wall. Originally one property with a full-width parlour at both ground and first floors; the lateral stair, beyond the main chimneybreast, links to a long deep 2-storey service wing to No.88. Fine front with 2 jettied stages, hipped roof; at the back there is heavy braced framing to a second-floor jetty, and No.88 has long timber-framed wing. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 2-windowed. At second floor, in rendered wall, 2 small 2-light casements. First floor has continuous glazed range of 3 x 4-light casements with moulded bars and transom, above a shallow breast wall of exposed close studding. Ground floor has square plate-glass shop front and part-glazed C19 door under small transom-light to No.88. No.88A has 6-pane square C19 shop front and part-glazed door; far right is a plank door to throughway under the building. A moulded fascia runs full-width above the ground floor, and above first-floor window range. At eaves is a plain wood fascia band, returned to sides. The back includes a brick-nogged jettied stage with two 2-light casements at second floor. The wing to No.88 is in tension-braced framing; brickwork to ground floor and 3-light wooden transomd casements date from remodelling in C18. Front block has small ridge stack, brick stacks to left gable wall and to wing; the stack in the gable wall is in large square ashlar blocks below the eaves level. INTERIOR: No.88 only inspected. Substantial framing and beams. Front block linked by arched doorway to rear wing. The interior is most remarkable for its large C15 fireplaces to both ground and first floors. The ground floor has a very large C15 ashlar fire hood on deep plain ashlar cheeks, with shaped brackets; the cheeks have probably been concealed by the later raising of floor level. The fire hood occupies a full bay between heavy posts which are bracketed to the deep lateral beams running the full width of the property. The same stack has at first-floor level a similar but smaller ashlar fireplace. The front block probably represents a storeyed late medieval solar block, the ground- and first-floor fireplaces being particularly unusual and distinctive features which are more characteristic in style of French than English examples.

Listing NGR: SO8917732603