Description

SHREWSBURY

SJ4812NE HILL'S LANE 653-1/10/368 (South West side) 10/01/53 Rowley's House and Rowley's Mansion (Formerly Listed as: HILLS LANE (South side) Rowley's House) (Formerly Listed as: HILLS LANE (South side) Rowley's Mansion)

GV II*

Pair of houses, now museum. Later C16 and 1618. Restored 1932. For Roger Rowley, wool merchant, and his son. Timber-framed and brick, with plain tiled roofs. Rowley's House is the earlier of the 2 buildings. Main range divided by archway through to rear with cross wing projecting to left of this. 3 storeys with attic. 7-window range in all. Main range comprises 2 gables, each of 2 bays. Archway to left in left-hand gable, doorway to left in right-hand gable. Jettied upper storeys. 2-light casements on each floor, and 3-light windows in gable apex. Framing in square panels with intermediate studs and tension braces. The framing is not continuous across the gables, suggesting 2 possible phases of construction. Rear elevation also comprises 2 gables, with casement windows of 2 and 3 lights. Cross range beyond passage framed with similar technique so possibly of similar date. Doorway in right of gable, with moulded arched lintel, and casement windows, some with transoms, on each floor. Roof line of adjacent building now demolished encapsulated in this gable wall. Some rear casements have early leaded lights, and some wood mullions are arranged diagonally, but much of the fenestration has been renewed in successive restorations. Deep jetty over street in side wall to left, carried on additional posts. The former Rowley's Mansion adjoins this timber building to the right. Brick. 3 storeys with attics, 2 gables to front elevation, largely blank, reflecting former presence of adjacent buildings. Side gable has 4-light stone mullioned and transomed window on each floor, with smaller 2-light windows each side on ground and first floors. Many of these windows renewed, apparently during a restoration of 1932. Stone moulded string courses and angle quoins, which continue across rear elevation and canted wing. Rear of front range has full-height squared bay window with mullioned and transomed windows and strapwork parapet. Porch in angle of this range and rear wing. Architrave has high bases enriched with strapwork decoration to moulded shafts with triglyph frieze in entablature. Doorway in shallow segmental arch with bulbous keystone and stepped voussoirs. 3- and 4-light stone mullioned and transomed windows in this wing do not align on each floor, and the fenestration is assymetrical on opposite elevation also. INTERIOR: Rowley's House comprises main ground-floor hall of 5 bays with roughly chamfered cross beams carried on brackets over projecting wall posts. Stone fireplace in end wall. Rowley's Mansion adjoins to the right, sharing the end wall stack. Lower room has square panelled ceiling with rosette decoration. Staircase, renewed, in canted wing of mansion, abutting the rear wall of Rowley's House. Rowley's House built by Roger Rowley who was a wool merchant, the Mansion built by his son, the earliest brick building in Shrewsbury.

Listing NGR: SJ4895112598

External Links

• Wikidata Q17542584

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Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback