Tewkesbury Museum and Attached Railings

Tewkesbury Museum and Attached Railings

This building on Barton Street was formerly two houses in a row and is now the town museum. It dates from the mid-17th century, though it incorporates some 16th-century work and may include earlier elements.

The structure consists of close-studded timber-framing with rendering and brickwork, covered by a tile roof with brick stacks. The plan comprises a double-jettied front block with a staircase hall positioned to the left, paired front rooms, and a back room creating an L-shaped layout. The off-centre entrance features a stone-flagged passage, probably originally serving as a throughway.

The exterior is three storeys high with two windows per floor. The second floor displays three 3-light casements with ovolo mouldings and transoms, positioned beneath a projecting 3-part eaves course with a concealed gutter, supported on three console brackets. The first floor has a full-width range of ovolo-moulded casements with transoms, including a central canted oriel under a moulded bressumer to the jetty with end brackets. The ground floor, beneath a moulded bressumer, contains replacement 6-light and a low 3-light casement, with a pair of 2-panel doors set in plastered cheeks. All windows feature rectangular leading. To the left of the entrance stands a section of closely-set oak railings, dating from the 16th or 17th century and set forward from the front wall. The building has a hipped roof with a large brick stack to the left. The return wall to the right is constructed in brick with a broad external stack. The back wing, built in modified English bond, displays a plain brick gable with a large external stack.

Internally, the front ground floor has been altered, but the back room retains a very large rough transverse beam with added mouldings and a 5-light casement. The open-well staircase with quarter-landings features a solid string with stick balusters and square newels, lit by a 5-light casement.

The first-floor front left room has complete 17th-century panelled walls, wide floorboards, and a central plastered beam. Above the window runs a continuous frieze of 17th-century chip-carving. The right room lacks panelling but has two plastered beams with mouldings to the front only. The small back room, lit by 3-light and 2-light casements, contains a central moulded plaster beam and wide floorboards.

The second-floor front left room features a large late 17th-century oval enriched plaster panel as its central compartment, heavy plastered and moulded beams—at one point carried on a post with console bracket—and a modillion cornice in part, with the cornice continuing through the rear partition. Pilasters with decorative scroll-like heads and panelled plinths flank the window. The right room has two heavy sagging plastered beams but is otherwise plain. At the stair-head leading to the back room stands a 17th-century six-panel door in very thin members.

The hipped front block with deep eaves and window strips is similar to No.100 Church Street in its application of broadly Renaissance forms to a traditional timber-frame structure. The property is notable for departing from the traditional mid-17th-century town house plan of side entry, instead featuring a central passageway between two heated rooms with a staircase in the back wing.