Numbers 25 and 25A Church Street and 1 Warns Court, Tetbury, Gloucestershire

Description

TETBURY

386/7/145 NUMBERS 25 AND 25A CHURCH STREET AND 1
06-SEP-54 WARNS COURT

(Formerly listed as:
CHURCH STREET
25 AND 25A)
(Formerly listed as:
CHURCH STREET
NUMBER 25 AND BUILDINGS IN YARD AT BACK)

GV II
A row of three shops in one building, with residential accommodation above and in the rear wings, part of the former brewery on the site behind. The main elevation to the front is a C18 refronting of C17 and possibly C16 rear buildings.

MATERIALS: The main front is rendered rubble stone with a parapet and Cotswold stone slate roof, with a small stone end stack to left and tall central ridge stack with moulded cornice. The rear elevations and wings are constructed in limestone rubble.

PLAN: The main range runs north-south, fronting Church Street, with wings running east-west to the rear, two to 25 and one to 25a.

EXTERIOR: The buildings are made up of a long front range with three gabled ranges behind, and a carriage arch left of centre. The main elevation is a three-storey, seven-window range; the three to left are twin casements, the four to right are set as two pairs of plate-glass sashes. The ground floor has three C20 shop fronts. The carriage arch has chamfered stone quoins and a timber square-framed wall to the left (number 25a). The rear elevation has two conjoined cross-wings behind No 25 of three storeys, with small rectangular opening in the apex of the gable; the windows are all multi-paned casements with the exception of a single eight-over-eight sash window to the ground floor. Attached to the rear of 25a is a wing in two stages, with a conjoined building to the south. These three elements, which may have originated as outbuildings rather than domestic quarters, make up 1 Warns Court. All three elements date from the later C16 or C17, and are constructed from limestone rubble with large dressed limestone quoins. The range to the rear of 25a Church Street has steeply-pitched Cotswold stone slate roofs, whilst the conjoined building has a hipped roof covered in Welsh slate. All the windows have timber lintels, and have uPVC replacement windows set in the earlier openings. The northern elevation has dove-holes set in a decorative pattern to either side of the central first-floor window.

INTERIOR: 25 and 25a Church Street each have retail units occupying their ground floors, 25a having original fireplaces with bressumers. The first and second floors of 25 Church Street have been converted to apartments, accessed via a doorway under the carriage arch, inside which is a modern staircase rising to the upper floors. The first-floor apartment to the front retains chamfered beams with run-out stops, and two original fireplaces, one with a chamfered stone surround, the other with a cambered bressumer and chamfered and stopped stone uprights. The ground floor of the rear wing to the north has large exposed beams with chamfers and bar-and-runout stops dating from the late C16 or early C17. The first and second floors of 25a Church Street are occupied by a flat, accessed from an external staircase in the carriage opening. To the interior of 1 Warns Court, the ground-floor room in the southern building has a wide fireplace with a chamfered bressumer over, and exposed stone quoins to the chimney breast above. The stair is modern, and unlikely to be in its original position. There is a brick-lined cellar under the main range.

HISTORY: The buildings now known as 25 and 25a Church Street, and 1 Warns Court, date from at least the C17, and probably from the C16. Their form is typical for townhouses in Tetbury at this date, with relatively narrow frontages to Church Street and long ranges to the rear. The elevations to Church Street, which are situated in a prominent position between the parish church and the C17 market house, originally had steep gables to the front in the local vernacular style, but were refronted and raised slightly in the C18, and given a rendered, classically-inspired façade with sash windows and a parapet. The attic storey was remodelled slightly to create a fully-habitable second floor. The ranges to the rear were largely unaltered at this date, and retain their gabled wings. The site has long been used for malting and brewing, with industrial processes housed in outbuildings behind the houses which fronted Church Street.

In the C19, the buildings formed part of an extensive brewery and malting complex, owned by the Warn and Witchell families. The brewing industry was the only large-scale industry in Tetbury in the later C19, having developed from the C18 malting industry. The Warns and Witchells had originated as maltsters but later also took up brewing, on adjoining sites in Church Street: one on the plot now occupied by 25 and 25a Church Street and Warns Court, and another immediately to its south, now the site of a new side-road, Old Brewery Lane, and the Church Street car park. The Barton Steam Brewery and the Dolphin Brewery, their respective businesses, were merged c1913, when the Warn family took over the Witchells' brewery. The resulting firm continued until 1931, when the business was voluntarily wound up. The brewery site was redeveloped in the 1970s, with the buildings fronting Church Street and their rear ranges retained as houses, the former stable range converted to residential use, and the industrial buildings demolished to create a car park and new housing. The ground floors of 25 and 25a were given over to retail use, whilst the living accommodation above 25 Church Street, now known as Chester House, was divided into four apartments. The rear range of 25a Church Street appears to have been a separate dwelling from at least the mid-C20, known as Dove Cottage, before becoming part of the Warns Court development in the 1970s.

SOURCES: A History of the County of Gloucester (Victoria County History): Volume 11: Bisley and Longtree Hundreds (1976), 269-73

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: 25 and 25a Church Street and 1 Warns Court are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic: the buildings date from the C16 or C17, and retain significant proportions of their fabric from this date
* Architectural: the main elevation was given a classically-inspired re-fronting during the C18, whilst the rear ranges retain their C16 or C17 gabled elevations
* Interior features: the interiors retain chamfered and stopped beams, and fireplaces with stone and timber surrounds of the C16 or C17
* Group value: the buildings form part of a group of listed townhouses of similar date, lining both sides of Church Street.

External Links

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