Description

LAUNCESTON

SX3284 HIGH STREET 660-1/4/68 (North West side) 27/02/50 No.4 incorporating the Judge's Kitchen

GV II*

Probable merchant's house. C16, or early C17, remodelled early C18. Render on timber-frame with moulded wooden cornices to shallow jetties to front; rear and wing has render on rubble to ground floor and slatehanging on studwork above; steep rag slate roof with 2 gabled dormers and deeply coved eaves cornice; stone stack on right. Courtyard plan including deep wing at right-angles to rear right and wing returned parallel to rear (the Judges Kitchen). 3 storeys; 4-window range with late C19 two-pane horned sashes within wooden architraves. Ground floor has house doorway with panelled door on the left and large late C20 shop front on its right. Rear has C18 stair window with thick glazing bars. Left-hand elevation of rear wing has carved lead gutter dated 1707; original former 3-light granite mullioned window with 1 original leaded light and 1 mullion removed breaking eaves at far right; 2 mid C19 12-pane hornless sashes on its left and late C19 fourteen-pane horned sash to far left; ground floor with pentice roof and 8-pane horned sashes in possible original openings in pairs of lights with rendered mullions between and original 4-centred arched chamfered doorway on the right. Other elevation has at least one C18 window with thick glazing bars. Wing, known as the Judges Kitchen, returned parallel and enclosing yard at rear has similar original doorway on its right; 4-pane horned sash breaking eaves above; projecting gable resembling pediment on left over blind 1st floor and blocked window to ground floor. INTERIOR: C16 floor structures and roof structure, with both trenched and butt purlins, to front range; some floor structure and original roof structure, with feet of trusses only, visible to rear wing. Interior of the Judges Kitchen not accessible except for ground-floor passage later cut through from inside its original doorway (with internal oak lintels) to right-hand wing. This evidence suggests that these 2 wings may not have had internal communication originally. Surviving original features include: 2 moulded oak doorways to 2nd floor between front and adjoining wing with cup and cover stops, the other with armour stops, both with original 9-panel studded doors; some panelling to 1st-floor landing area and some ovolo-moulded doorframes; later C17 scratch-moulded door (repaired C19) between front attics. C18 features include: open-well closed-string staircase with pulvinated frieze; fairly heavy turned balusters; moulded handrail, newel caps and pendants; ovolo-moulded panelling to wide passage beside shop including a round-arched niche and frame for fireplace; communicating doorway between landing and rear room of wing and several 2-panel doors; bolection-moulded chimneypiece to 2nd-floor right. Mid C19 remodelling of rear right-hand wing includes a curved open-well stair; quadrant-on plan door and an iron grate. HISTORY: reputed to be a former house of "The Hanging Judge", Judge Jefferies. An interesting and remarkably (for Cornwall) complete large probable merchant's house built around 3 sides of a courtyard at rear and adjoining the former castle ditch.

Listing NGR: SX3317684628

External Links

• Wikidata Q17532573

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Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings