39 And 40, High Street

Nos. 39 and 40, High Street, Tewkesbury

This is a large double house in a row, dating from around 1730. It is built in Flemish bond brickwork with some stone dressings, a tile roof, and brick chimney stacks.

The building has an unusually grand and wide symmetrical frontage with a broad central carriageway and deep rear wings. The principal entrance to each house is positioned immediately beyond the back of the covered carriageway, with the staircase flanked by principal rooms on either side. Although built as one development, the detailing differs between the two houses, as the basic building shell was clearly completed to the requirements of separate owners from the outset.

The exterior comprises three storeys and a basement, with a five-window front. The windows are late 19th-century plate-glass sashes with broad moulded boxes, brick voussoirs with decorative keystones to ovolo-mould cornices, and moulded stone cills. The keystone motif differs between No. 39 and No. 40. The central window at first and second floors features a Palladian unit with original 8:12:8-pane sashes plus radial arched heads, with broad moulded surrounds, moulded sash boxes, triple decorative keystones, and moulded cills. The ground floor has two inserted doorways to the left of centre and a blocked former doorway between windows to the right. A cement-rendered plinth runs across the front, with a basement grille to the right. The wide central arch has channelled responds and voussoirs under a continuous plat band, above which is a recessed stone panel. A pair of good panelled gates hangs at the rear of the opening, with hinge-pins remaining in the front opening. A stone modillion cornice, blocking course, and moulded stone parapet coping run across the top, returned at the ends and stopped to a large brick stack on each gable wall. The throughway is in plain brickwork, with a 6-panel fielded door to each side. At the back of the main block is a further pair of panelled gates hung to panelled pilasters and a beam.

The left wing features a 12-pane sash above a similar sash with arched head and a 6-panel fielded door under an arched plain fanlight, plus a further large 12-pane sash to the right. Beyond this is a shallow range connected to a returned 18th-century range, enclosing a small courtyard at the rear of No. 39. Beyond the courtyard is a 2-storey hipped 18th-century building with a wide 3-light above a 4-light casement, both with leading. The right wing is similar, but the stair sash is not arched, and to the left of the door is a wide 3-pane light to segmental head. The roof to this wing is hipped at the return. Beyond the wing stands a detached 2-storey carriage house.

Although built as one development, the interiors were separately occupied and fitted out. No. 39 has fittings at all levels superior to those in No. 40. No. 39 has a ground-floor front room fully panelled with large sunk panels to a moulded edge and inset quadrant corners, original 6-panel fielded doors in arched moulded architraves with a fluted keyblock, a neat modillion cornice, and moulded dado rail and skirting. The rear room is less ornate but has two cupboards with arched pairs of panelled doors flanking an 18th-century fire surround. A generous open-well 18th-century staircase rises through both floors in polished hardwood, with an open string and swept handrail on slender twisted balusters, three to each tread. At the first-floor landings are doors similar to those below, and the front room has an 18th-century fire surround with eared architrave, the opening now blocked. A further 18th-century fire surround is at second-floor level. No. 40 is detailed more economically, with no keyblocks to the doors, and the staircase is a more austere version in painted softwood with turned balusters, a moulded solid string, and moulded handrail.

This was an unusually grand example of 18th-century rebuilding in the High Street. It is unfortunate that the glazing bars have been removed from all windows except the central Palladian windows.