18, Sadler Street

WELLS

ST5445 SADLER STREET 662-1/7/229 (East side) 13/09/72 No.18

GV II

House in short row. 1451, with C18 internal remodelling and C19 facades. Local stone, roughcast, Welsh slate roof with continuation to north, coped gable to south, brick chimney stacks. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with attics, random fenestration. Plinth, central 6-panel door with timber doorcase having Doric pilasters and entablature, with 2 plain sash windows on each side of ground floor level, first floor has 2 plain sash windows, one centred over left window and one over front door, and centred over right-hand pair of windows an oriel window with 4+12+4 pane sash units, under a flat roof. Above this last a dormer with segmental curved roof having a 2-light casement window and glazed cheeks. Rear elevation to Cathedral Green similar, but with triple-roll clay tiled roof, and one chimney stack set on a stone base, the ground floor has a C20 glazed door with fanlight to left, then a triple unit plain sash window, with wider centre unit, above are two 4-pane sash windows set at different levels, and in roof is a pitched roofed dormer with a 4-pane sash window. Traces of a medieval stone string course, pierced by first-floor windows. INTERIOR: the entrance hall has a chamfered crossbeam, and fielded 4-panel doors, north-west ground-floor room has a 4-panel ceiling with C15 moulded beams, C18 dado panelling and window reveals with shutters, the south-west room has a 4 unequal-panel ceiling with chamfered crossbeams without runouts, with C18 window reveals and shutters, south-east room similar, with one chamfered ceiling beam. Staircase has turned balusters and newels with knob caps, probably 1760/80, under which is a blocked 4-centre arched doorway in the spine wall (formerly the medieval churchyard wall). On the first floor, the north-west room has a 2-bay ceiling with C15 moulded beams, and a later C18 fireplace, other rooms have plain chamfered beams, but the south-west room has a 2-bay ceiling with C18 mouldings added, the south-east room has a C18 cornice and fireplace. At attic level, the rear room has a C18 door and a chamfered crossbeam, the front attic has a 5-bay arched collar-braced trussed roof with 2 ranks of purlins, the lower rank having curved arched windbraces to most bays, most timbers chamfered. This house and that to the north (No.20 qv) form part of the 1451 "new Works" of Bishop Beckynton (Scrase); see Market Place (qv) (Town and Country Planning Working Papers: Scrase AJ: Wells: A Study of Town Origins: Bristol: 1982-: 59).

Listing NGR: ST5495445832