Description

WORCESTER

SO8554NW MEALCHEAPEN STREET
620-1/17/439 (South side)
22/05/54 No.16
Formerly Listed as:
MEALCHEAPEN STREET
(South side)
Former Shades Public
House)

GV II

Formerly known as: The Prince's Arms MEALCHEAPEN STREET.
Inn, now shop. 1748 with later additions and alterations
including c1980s ground-floor shop front. Reddish-brown brick
in Flemish bond with ashlar quoins, sills, architraves, cornice
and copings; concealed roof; probably with timber frame.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 5 first-floor windows. Quoins to angles;
crowning elaborately moulded cornice (ovolo, step, and cyma
reversa mouldings), with parapet and ovolo-moulded copings.
First and second floors have 6/6 flush sashes (those to second
floor and to centre, first floor have thick glazing bars), the
central windows to each floor have flat arches of gauged brick
and raised keystones with incised panels and moulded cornices;
windows have shaped sills; central, first-floor window has
tooled, eared architrave with frieze and segmental pediment and
more elaborately moulded sill on corbel brackets; to second
floor, central window has eared architrave, raised to centre,
with similarly elaborate sill on corbel brackets. Shop front
has plate-glass windows and central glazed entrance.
INTERIOR: ground floor retains no evidence of original plan or
original features, but noted as retaining roof constructed with
raised principals (Hughes, 'upper crucks') and collars; first
floor said to retain eal panelling and fluted pilasters to
front room.
HISTORICAL NOTE: from C16 to C19 Nos 15 (qv) and 16 were leased
together, and were first licenced as an inn in 1608; in 1618
the inn, known as The Prince's Arms (for Prince Henry) was
rebuilt and it was rebuilt again in its present state in 1748.
During the C19 the inn was known as The Shades. Mealcheapen
Street flourished particularly in the C16 and early C17,
predominantly as a retail outlet; Hughes: 'it was the proximity
to the Cornmarket that gave the street much of its prosperity
and led to the establishment of a number of
large inns.'
All the listed buildings in Mealcheapen Street form a group
with the listed buildings in Cornmarket and with Church of St
Swithun, Church Street (qqv).
(Hughes P: Buildings and the Building Trade in Worcester
1540-1650: PhD thesis: 1990-: 199-200, 220-221).

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26669428

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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