Conservative Club

WELLS

ST5445 MARKET PLACE 662-1/7/150 (North side) 13/09/72 No.11 Conservative Club (Formerly Listed as: MARKET PLACE (North side) Nos.3-25 (Odd))

GV II*

Includes: No.4 CATHEDRAL GREEN. House with shop, now club. c1453, built as part of the "New Works" by Bishop Bekynton, modified in C19 and early C20. Rendered with false ashlar lining, and colourwashed, Welsh slate roof behind parapet, with coped gable to west and continuation to east, brick chimney stack. PLAN: the property continues through as No.4 Cathedral Green at its N end; the original front range, with through passage to the right, has a single large room on each of the upper floors, then the early stair, and a link by a passageway to the later rear wing. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with attic, single wide bay. Ground floor extended in early C20 work using rusticated ashlar, with plinth, pilasters and cornice below lead flat roof, single window in plain opening with curved top corners having 3-pane toplight, to right a 2-panel door under rectangular fanlight. Upper floors have a wide canted bay window to full height of parapet, incorporating sash windows in architraves with 18+30+18 panes to first floor and 12+20+12 panes to second floor, with dentilled cornices over both windows and then panels of diagonal boarding, the whole surmounted by a flagpole, To left is a buttress with 2 offsets, the top damaged, and adjacent is a lead rainwater stackhead and downpipe, traces of cornice string behind rendering. Behind parapet a small flat-roofed dormer on the right side. The rear range, to Cathedral Green, is rendered and with slate roof; remodelled mid C20, in 2 storeys, with 12-pane sashes above a large 16-pane and a good 6-panel door with margin-pane transom-light. INTERIOR: the ground floor has been substantially modified, with a C20 staircase to the first floor, where the principal room has a 2-compartment ceiling with beams, moulded in the front half only. In the rear wall is a stone corbel, and there is a C17 6-panel door and 3-light casement with ovolo-mould mullions and transom, the original ferramenta, but later leading. The upper stair is a wood spiral with turned newel, and the upper level is entered through a chamfered stone 4-centred arch. The E wall is in heavy timber-framing, and the 2-bay roof has the original roof structure with 2 ranges of broad chamfered wind-bracing. There is a small stone fireplace with 4-centred arch and ovolo plus cavetto moulding. HISTORICAL NOTE: a photograph of 1910 in the building shows that the main canted bays at that time had no glazing bars. At that time this was the Constitutional Club. Part of an outstanding late medieval planned urban group. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 328).

Listing NGR: ST5500945802