Description

WORCESTER

SO8555SW THE AVENUE
620-1/13/595 (East side)
22/05/54 Bushwackers (originally
The Old Trinity House)
(Formerly Listed as:
THE AVENUE
Church House)

GV II*

Formerly known as: The Old Trinity House THE AVENUE.
Also known as: Bushwackers (formerly Church House and
originally The Old Trinity House) TRINITY STREET.
House, diocesan office, now restaurant. c1750 with later
additions and alterations including rebuilding to west facade
and additions probably of 1907; restorations and conversion to
restaurant c1994. West facade of red brick in Flemish bond
with ashlar pilasters, porch, keystones and finials; east
facade of pinkish-red brick in Flemish bond with ashlar quoins
and architraves; rendered basement; plain tile hipped roof,
tall clusters of north ridge and south end pinkish-red brick
stacks with oversailing courses and pots.
PLAN: central stairhall, single-depth plan, the ground-floor
has been altered but the south room is intact, a corridor at
north west allowed access to wing and service stair c1907 and
may have been original, this north room has now been opened
up. The rear (east) facade is in Gothick style.
EXTERIOR: West facade: 2 storeys with attics, 3 bays with
1:5:1 first-floor windows and projecting 2-lower-storey wings
to either side. 2 giant part-fluted pilasters frame centre 3
windows, surmounted by crowning frieze and broken pediment
with central obelisk, obelisks also over columns. 1/1 horned
sashes to centre and 6/2 sashes to outer bays with flat arches
of gauged brick. Rusticated central porch has scrolled swan
neck pediment with re-used finial and 2 outer finials, double
panelled doors, cambered fanlight with radial glazing bars and
luted keystone. Worn plaque over door reads: 'The Old Trinity
House / ... the ... re-constructed / .... foundations; / ....
1907 adapted as the ... Worcester Diocesan Church House.' 2
attic roof dormers with pedimented gables and 6/1 sashes.
Wings have full-height 5-sided bays; 6/6, 6/1, and 1/1 sashes.
East facade: 2 storeys with attics and basement, 3 bays; the
centre bay projects. Quoins to angles, those to centre are
alternate brick and stone. Outer bays and returns to centre
have 3-course band. Windows to ground and first floors are
Venetian
but with ogeed arches to centre and round arches to outer
windows; 6/6 sash to centres with ogeed glazing bars to heads,
between 4/4 sashes with Y-glazing to heads; shaped architraves
with finial to apex of ogee, imposts and sills. Central
entrance in similar surround: steps to part-glazed, renewed
door with ogeed overlight with Gothick glazing bars between
round-arched windows, 4-pane lights with Y-tracery to heads;
shaped architrave with imposts. Above entrance a shaped
plaque. Crowning moulded cornice. 3 roof dormers have 6/2
sashes and ogeed gables with Gothick glazing bars. Basement:
to left are 3 pointed-arched recesses and gabled buttresses
between; to right a single arched opening with Gothick glazing
bars to blind head.
INTERIOR: retains much original plasterwork and joinery.
Cantilevered staircase with shaped tread ends and understairs
has elaborate wrought-iron balustrade and ramped handrail with
large wreath; panelled dado with fluted pilasters. Embellished
architraves to Venetian windows with column clusters between
sashes throughout and with ogees surmounted by urns.
Plasterwork: to hall an embellished frieze and cornice with
quatrefoils to ground floor and fleurons to first floor,
ground floor ceiling has delicate plaster rose, upper floor
has oval with swags and scrolling grape motif within and
scrolled embellishments to angles. Ground floor room to south
has central ceiling motif with musical instruments and doves;
egg and dart cornice; north room has central embellished oval
and foliate motifs to angles. Some windows to west facade
retain C18 joinery including panelled shutters, now painted
in. Basement has twist-stem columns around walls and ribs to
barrel-vaulted ceiling.
HISTORICAL NOTE: Pevsner surmises that 'underlying some of the
evidently Victorian work on the front ... there is an early
C18 house with giant fluted pilasters and fluted keystones'.
The house, originally known as The Old Trinity House, was from
1907 the Worcester Diocesan Church House and c1968-85 the City
Department of Health; it as converted to a restaurant c1994.
One of an excellent group of C18 buildings in The Cross, from
which The Avenue leads as a short driveway, forming a good
group with Former Church of St Nicholas, Premises occupied by
Bradford and Bingley Building Society, Premises occupied by
Halifax Building Society, Premises occupied by Lloyds Bank,
and Nos 20, 21, 28 and 31(qqv). Pevsner calls this
'Worcester's premier Gothic Revival House'.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire:
Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 331).

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17548228

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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  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
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  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)