89 And 90, Church Street

TEWKESBURY

SO8932 CHURCH STREET 859-1/6/144 (North side) 04/03/52 Nos.89 AND 90

GV II*

House at end of row, with shop, returns to St Mary's Street. C15 or early C16 and C20. Braced timber-framing in large square panels, brick return, stone plinth, tile roof, brick stack. PLAN: formerly described as being entirely encased in brick, the parallel-plan property was substantially rebuilt with new framing in the 1970s, but stands over a vaulted cellar of early date. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attic and cellar; 2 gabled dormers above three 2-light casements in 3 adjacent wall panels, multi-pane shop front with recessed central door on 4 stone steps. Plinth wall, upper part of basement, reads as stall riser to windows, contains upper part of slit light to right. Jettied upper floor, corner bracket. Right return has 2-light casements to attic and first floor, in segmental heads, and multi-pane fixed light to ground floor. Short gabled wing slightly canted to follow street line. Stack to rear. INTERIOR rebuilt to historic pattern with good timbers, but substantially now of C20. Nine steep stone steps descend to basement with concrete floor, rubble walls, and quadripartite vault to deep (approx 225mm) broad-chamfered ribs with narrow (approx 30mm) arris, rough cut stone to severies in English mode. At the stair entry is a further narrow tranche of vaulting, with a rib rising from the front wall and dying to stone wall. Vault ribs rise from carved corbels at stair end. Centre front is trimmed opening, and beginning of flight of steps to pavement - now sealed, also, opposite stair, deep embrasure to slit window in dressed stone. The vault form suggests a continuation under the adjacent road (St Mary's Street), but excavation at the time of restructuring did not confirm this. Important for retention of the stone cellar.

Listing NGR: SO8918032606