5, Castle Street

BRIDGWATER

ST2937SE CASTLE STREET 736-1/10/20 (South side) 24/03/50 No.5 (Formerly Listed as: CASTLE STREET (South side) Nos.3 AND 5)

GV I

House, now offices, one property with No 3 (qv) to the left. 1723-8 for James Brydges, Duke of Chandos. By Benjamin Holloway or Fort and Shepherd, the Duke's London surveyors. Refronted late C18/early C19. Flemish-bond brick, stone quoins, cills, stepped voussoirs, plinth capping and doorcase; double Roman tile roof continuous with No 3, hipped to the right and rear with brick stacks to left of right return and rear. Double-depth plan. 3 storeys with basement; one-window range. Windows, with some crown glass, to right of centre; 3/6-pane sash to the second floor, 6/6-pane sashes below and a flat arch to the basement opening. Steps up to the painted and pedimented doorcase to the left which has pilasters and consoles; 6 raised and fielded panels to the door, the smallest panels to the centre, with an iron knocker. Windows to right of the right return, also rebuilt, are similar to those on the front; to centre of first floor a semicircular gauged brick arch to a tall 6/6-pane sash stair window. INTERIOR: the hall, with late C19 margin-pane double inner doors, has unmoulded early C18 panelling, open-string stairs with fretted ends, moulded handrail, and complex newels of a barleysugar-twist baluster surrounded on the outer sides by turned balusters similar to those on the stairs. Plain full-height panelling to upper rooms and 4-panel door with an L hinge to the front room which also has a mechanism to a former system of raising a counter-balanced shutter. The second floor has wide floorboards and a late C19 cast-iron arch-plate register grate. The basement has a brick floor with a well to the right. The terraces of houses in Castle Street form an important group, unusual for their scale and ambition outside London's West End. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: South and West Somerset: London: 1958-: 100; Colvin H: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1660-1840: London: 1978-: 428; VCH: Somerset: London: 1992-: 200).

Listing NGR: ST2997837171