3, High Street

WELLS

ST5445 HIGH STREET 662-1/7/79 (South side) 12/11/53 No.3

GV II

House, now shop, with continuation of hotel over. Mid C19 facade to C16 or earlier building. Brick colourwashed, with painted stone dressings, hipped clay pantiled double roof with ridges at right angles to street, behind parapets. The ground floor is occupied separately as a shop, opened both to the rear wing, and to the adjoining No.1 (qv). PLAN: front range is double-depth plan, with staircase rear right, and a long rear wing. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 2 bays. C19 shop front across ground floor, modified, original doorway to left blocked with window, doors now set in almost central recess, slim fascia with cornice. Above, very shallow canted bay windows with plain sash to each facet, with parapet and flat roofs at second floor level, the main parapet being a little higher. INTERIOR: the ground floor front has, to the right, a moulded jetty post and bracket approx 1.5m from the shop-front, with a deep mortice for a transverse bracket, carrying a moulded bressumer, partly cut back on the ground floor. The party wall to the right has a form of wainscot with deep (c300mm) butted plain planks set between structural posts of the original framing, and a deep boxed transverse beam carried at the rear on a further wide (c800mm) boxed beam, and, to the left, remains of a 4-compartment C16 ceiling with chamfers and stops to the beams. At this end the front bressumer mouldings have been cut away. The rear compartment, originally a separate room, has some heavy close-spaced ceiling joists, and deep chamfered beams. Across the corner diagonally, to the left, is a 4-light casement in cast-iron, with cusped heads to the lights, and small-scale diamond panes. The rear wing, at a lower level, has 4 transverse boxed beams, and two composite early C19 4+12+4 pane sashes, complete with head panelling but with shutters missing. The upper floors continue the hotel accommodation from No.3 (qv). At first floor the open lounge has deep chamfered beams, and a large central boxed beam; the rear wall, formerly external, includes a 2-light cast-iron casement with diamond panes, and a door to the stairway with early C18 dog-leg stair to solid string, fine turned balusters and moulded handrail, returned to the upper landing. The wing has a corridor to the right, with a series of bedrooms inserted; some beams cross the corridor. The roof over the front range has chamfered wind-bracing; the second floor of the wing has a series of heavy principals to the roof trusses, with collars and purlins, and cambered ties, in 6 bays. The rooms are mostly in C20 detail, but the chamfered purlins are exposed.

Listing NGR: ST5499145730