Ritchie House With Boundary Walls And Outbuilding

Ritchie House with Boundary Walls and Outbuilding

A house at the end of a row, now part of Wells Cathedral School, dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. It is constructed in Bath stone ashlar with a Welsh slate mansard roof between coped gables and ashlar stone chimney stacks.

The building follows a double-pile symmetrical plan with an internal valley. The centre is marked by an entrance hall with an internal lateral corridor. A rear geometrical staircase sits in a semicircular well, not expressed on the exterior. To the left, a cross passage leads to a rear secondary staircase, and a hipped full-height wing projects to the rear left.

The exterior presents 2 storeys with attics and basement across 5 bays. A plinth, cornice, and plain parapet define the frontage. Large sash windows occupy plain openings: 12-pane windows to the ground floor and 9-pane windows to the first floor, both in stone surrounds. The first 2 bays contain 2-light stone casement basement windows with plain mullions and segmental heads. The main entrance, reached by 4 stone steps, features a glazed door in a stone doorcase with attached Ionic columns carrying an entablature and pediment. Behind the parapet sit 3 dormer windows with segmental-arched roofs: the left-hand window is a double 6-pane sash, while the others are single 6-pane sashes.

The right return is rendered, with 2 stacks joined by a straight parapet. At ground floor level is a canted bay with a flat roof and parapet above plain sashes and a pair of French doors. Two small 9-pane sashes light the attic. The rear wall contains 9 and 12-pane sashes, and 2 arched sashes with Y-tracery serving the staircase.

The interior retains much original detail throughout. Shutters, doorcases, and doors are panelled with raised mouldings and reeded surrounds. The inner casing to the main entrance has fluted pilasters and an entablature. The hall floor is laid in Minton tiles. Main rooms to the left and right contain fireplaces: the left features a boxed-in 19th-century cast-iron surround, while the right has a white marble fireplace with heavy scrolls and a tile insert. This room is further decorated with a palmette frieze and cornice. The hall accesses the staircase through an elliptical arch repeated at the two upper levels, with panelled soffit and linings.

The wooden geometric staircase displays scrolled treads with the scrolls repeated across the trimming of the first-floor landing, reeded stick balusters, and a swept handrail. Two Gothick lights with Y-tracery illuminate the staircase. The secondary stair, with a stone flag floor extending from the side passage, is an unusually large open-well staircase with stick balusters. It descends to the basement, which features a series of transverse brick barrel vaults.

To the north of the main house, adjoining the party boundary near the street front, are the remains of a 16th-century outbuilding formerly on 2 floors. Constructed in rubble and roughly square on plan, it retains the upper part of a stone doorway with a 4-centred head; the lower parts of the jambs lie below present ground level. Extending northwards from the north-east corner of the house, beginning with a curved break forward, is a random stone wall on an ashlar plinth with plain coping, leading to a boarded gate. This wall returns along the north edge of the site and across the rear at a height of approximately 2.75 metres. The walls form part of the streetscape opposite the junction of The Liberty with New Street.