Description

LANCASTER

SD4761NE CHURCH STREET 1685-1/7/87 (North side) 22/12/53 No.76 Conservative Club and attached railings (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH STREET No.76 The Lancaster Conservative Club)

GV II*

House, now club house. Early C18 with 1637 rear wing, and some early C19 alterations and additions. Sandstone ashlar with ashlar dressings to front facade with roughly coursed rubble elsewhere. Slate roof with gable chimney stacks. 2 rectangular blocks parallel to the street and linked by a passage on the right-hand side. The front block has 3 storeys above a cellar, which is at ground level at the rear, and 5 bays with a prominent eaves cornice with a blocking course. To either side the lead rainwater hoppers have a lion mask. All the windows have moulded architraves and are sashed without glazing bars; those on the second floor are shorter. The slightly projecting doorway, up 4 steps, has engaged fluted Ionic columns carrying an entablature with a pulvinated frieze, which breaks back between the columns, and a dentilled pediment. The reveals of the doorway have panels whose pattern - tall, short, tall - does not match the pattern of the door itself, which has 2 rows of 4 narrow panels below an integral overlight whose glazing bars form a pattern based on a hollow-sided diamond. The area to the left is blocked; to the right the area has tall cast-iron railings with stick balusters topped with spikes and standards in the form of bobbin balusters with urn finials. To the right of the doorway, on the return of the railings, are scrolled wrought-iron cresting and the remains of a tall lantern bracket; attached to the wall inside the railings is a torch-snuffer. The C17 rear block, of 4 storeys with a continuous flat-topped parapet, is dominated by an early C19 two-storey bow, offset to the left. This has a flat-roofed porch at ground level, providing the deck to French windows on the first floor (which is on the same level as the ground floor of the front block). To the left of the bow on the ground floor is a 2-light mullioned window; to the right there are a blocked 3-light window with recessed chamfered mullions and 2 chamfered doorways, the one to the far right with a moulded lintel. Above the left-hand window on the second floor is a diamond-shaped datestone with raised letters: 'T R M 1637'. INTERIOR has very extensive panelling, mostly of early C18 type, with raised and fielded panels above and below a dado rail: that in the principal ground-floor room, or hall, and the saloon above it has fluted Corinthian pilasters; that in the right-hand ground-floor room, or parlour, in the spinal corridors on both floors, and in the ground-floor dining room of the rear block has fluted Tuscan pilasters; the room above the dining room in the rear block has a fully-panelled closet with built-in cupboards and drawers underneath them. In the bar behind the hall in the front block there is C17 muntin and rail panelling. The main staircase, on the right of the front block, is doglegged and has an open string, elaborately carved brackets and moulded trimmings to the steps and risers, 3 fluted balusters per tread, fluted rectangular newels and a ramped handrail; at the first half-landing it has a round-headed stair window with the original thick glazing bars, while at the second half-landing it has a chamfered stone cross-window. A doglegged staircase in the rear block has a 2-light mullioned stair window and may have splat balusters under modern boarding. The basement of the rear block contains a stone fireplace approx 2m wide, with chamfered jambs and a massive moulded lintel. In the passage there are 2 blocked 2-light mullioned windows. HISTORY: the deeds are said to show that Oliver Marton senior bought the property in 1723 from Edmond Cole. After his death in 1744 it passed to his eldest son Edward Marton MP, who died in 1758 and was succeeded by his brother, the Reverend Oliver Marton. There is a tradition that this is the house, occupied by a Mrs Livesey, in which Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed from 24th to 26th November 1745 on his way south.

Listing NGR: SD4754761870

External Links

• Wikidata Q17531661

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Recommended Books

• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas