Description

WELLS

ST5445 MARKET PLACE
662-1/7/146 (North side)
13/09/72 No.7
(Formerly Listed as:
MARKET PLACE
(North side)
Nos.3-25 (Odd))

GV II*

Includes: No.4B CATHEDRAL GREEN.
House with shop, now offices. c1453, built as part of the "New
Works" by Bishop Bekynton, modified in C19 and late C20.
Rendered, with false ashlar lines scribed on, colourwashed,
Welsh slate roof behind parapet with coped gable to west,
brick chimney stack.
PLAN: the property extends through as No.4b Cathedral Green at
its N end; the main front range is flanked by a throughway to
the right, the original staircase to its left, and return wing
across the rear, enclosing a long narrow courtyard, partly
filled by C20 work.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, single wide bay. Ground floor has
projecting shop front of C19 style, with stone and rendered
stallriser, 5-light display window with extra light to left
apparently replacing a second doorway, flanked by slim
panelled pilasters, 6-panel door under rectangular fanlight to
right, very slim fascia with cornice mould and lead flat roof
over. Upper floors have a wide shallow canted bay window to
full height of parapet, incorporating sash windows with
exposed boxes, of 8+16+8 panes to first floor and 4+8+4 panes
to second floor, cornice mouldings over each window. On the
left, a C15 buttress with two offsets, and also a lead
rainwater stackhead and downpipe. Traces of the original
medieval string course above second floor. Projecting sign
towards right at ground floor level.
The rear range is an C18 rebuilding, with C20 facade,
rendered, with pantile roof. 3 storeys, 3 bays; all horned
12-pane sashes, and with door to the left. The lowest floor is
well below that of Cathedral Green.
INTERIOR: the ground floor has 2 main rooms, that to the front
with a large chamfered transverse beam with run-out stops, and
the rear with a 4-compartment ceiling with moulded beams, an
early 3-panel door, and C19 fireplace in the N wall, with
reeded pilasters and paterae. The through passage has a
flagged floor, and the main room to the rear has C18 cupboard
doors. The stone spiral stair is approached through a wide
4-centred stone arch, and has oak treads, in a
half-cylindrical well; the top landing has a late C16 or early
C17 balustrade. At first floor, above the passageway is an
embedded chamfered beam on 3 corbels, to a run-out stop at its
S end. At the second floor landing is a 2-light fixed wooden
casement with stubs of former vertical bars, and a small
recess and 2-panel fielded door.
The 2-bay roof has 2 ranges of wide chamfered wind-braces, and
3 chamfered and stopped purlins; the truss to the W has its
heavy arch-braced collar, but the braces and collar have been
removed from a second truss, and the E wall has heavy
timber-framing. In the rear wall to this main range is a stone
doorway to a 4-centred arch, and an early 8-pane sash with
slender lozenge glazing bars.
Part of an outstanding late medieval planned urban group.
No.4B Cathedral Green was listed on 130972
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol:
London: 1958-: 328).

Listing NGR: ST5499645798

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17553051

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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