5, Market Place

WELLS

ST5445 MARKET PLACE 662-1/7/145 (North side) 12/11/53 No.5 (Formerly Listed as: MARKET PLACE (North side) Nos.3-25 (Odd))

GV II*

House with shop, now offices. c1453, built as part of the "New Works" by Bishop Bekynton, modified C19. Rendered and colourwashed, Welsh slate roof behind parapet, and brick chimney stack. PLAN: property extends back to become No.5, Cathedral Green at the N end. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with attic, single wide bay. Ground floor has projecting shop front of late C19 style, having painted panelled ashlar stall riser, 12-large-pane display window flanked by slim fluted pilasters, under slim fascia with shop blind, 6-panel door to left with plain rectangular fanlight, all under a felted flat roof. Upper floors have a wide shallow-angled bay window to full height of parapet, incorporating sash windows with exposed boxes of 8+16+8 panes to first floor and 9+15+9 panes to second floor, cornice mouldings over each window. Traces of the original medieval string course under the rendering at second floor level. Behind parapet a small flat-roofed dormer and a second, slightly higher, to the right, with a louvred window; small stack to the right, on raised coped verge. The N elevation, to Cathedral Green, is in rubble, with double Roman tile steep pitched roof, set with coped gable to the Green. 3 storeys and attic; a small square light in the gable above a large 4-pane sash, but with evidence for a former wide casement. At first floor are two 4-pane sash to concrete lintels, and at ground floor a 4-panel door under plain transom-light and in a Tuscan pilaster surround, and a 2-light casement. The right eaves has a brick stack on a coped gablet. INTERIOR: ground floor has C20 partitions, but 4 bays of ceiling with moulded beams survive. Stone newel staircase to first floor, with 2-bay ceilings with moulded beams to front, and C19 fireplace. Second floor has suspended ceiling below the mediaeval roof structure, doors of late C18, and a large 18-pane sash with thick glazing bars to the stairwell. Part of an outstanding late medieval planned group. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 328).

Listing NGR: ST5499745785