Bridgwater Arts Centre

Two houses forming part of a significant terraced group on Castle Street in Bridgwater. Built 1723-8 for James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, designed by Benjamin Holloway or Fort and Shepherd, the Duke's London surveyors.

The buildings are constructed in red and yellow Flemish-bond brick with Ham Hill stone moulded coping to parapets, cornices, architraves and doorcases. Those to No 11 and to the ground floor and first-floor left of No 13 are painted. Pantile roofs sit above with brick stacks set to party walls. Both houses follow a double-depth plan with 3 storeys and basement, presenting a symmetrical 5-window range.

The windows have bracketed cills beneath slightly shouldered segmental arches to cyma-moulded architraves carved into rectangular blocks set into the brickwork. Windows to No 11, with moulded cills, are late 19th-century horned plate-glass sashes. Those to No 13 on the right, with plain cills, are 6/6-pane sashes except for 2 on the ground floor left which have plate glass in the lower sashes. Most glazing bars are thin except for 3 on the second-floor left which are thick and probably original. Some crown glass survives. Above the doors both houses feature a semicircular arched window with block imposts and stepped keystones reaching the cill of the window above.

The doorcase of No 11 is probably late 19th-century work, with engaged Tuscan columns on plinths bearing blocks and cushions over the capitals. A wide segmental arch has a moulded keystone beneath a cushion, probably inserted to fill the space between the high, likely original cornice and the doorcase itself. A late 19th-century door-frame has a segmental-arched overlight, narrow fixed windows to the sides and flanking a 4-panel door with bolection moulding. The basement has 2 segmental brick arches to the right and a wide 19th-century opening with a bull-nosed brick arch to the left.

No 13, the end house of the terrace, has a cornice which sweeps up to the right and lacks stone quoins, suggesting the original intention was to continue the terrace further. The architrave to the door carries the same cyma moulding seen on the windows with a moulded keystone. The 20th-century eight-panel door has a large plain overlight. Two segmental brick arches to the basement appear on the left with traces of similar on the right.

Interior features are notable. A ground-floor right room in No 13 retains panelling above and below the dado rail, vertical panels to walls, and bolection moulding to horizontal panels on the chimney breast. A box cornice and panelled shutters remain, whilst moulded ceiling panels with a large central circle framed by rectangles are original. A late 18th-century Adam-style wooden fireplace carries swags to the lintel and marble insets around a duck's nest cast-iron grate. The late 19th-century door is 4-panelled; the rear of the hall is stone-flagged.

No 11 retains some 19th-century high thick skirting boards, 19th-century moulded cornices and 4-panel doors with added moulding. The staircase has stick balusters, a turned newel and swept rail. One early 18th-century two-panel door survives on the second floor.

The terraces of houses in Castle Street form an important group, unusual for their scale and ambition outside London's West End. These two houses are reputed to be the premises of the oldest arts centre in England. In 1948 the Mars international conference on architecture was held here rather than in London to recognise the significance of the event. Walter Gropius, Maxwell Fry and Le Corbusier attended.