| Title: |
The Gatehouse, Bird Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire |
| Series: |
Cotswold Archaeology unpublished report series
|
| Downloads: |
|
cotswold2-509321_191367.pdf (5 MB)
:
|
Download
|
|
| Biblio Note |
This report was uploaded to the OASIS system by the named Publisher. The report has not been reviewed by the relevant HER. The report has been transferred into the ADS Library for public access and to facilitate future research.
|
| Licence Type: |
ADS Terms of Use and Access
|
| DOI |
|
| Publication Type: |
Report (in Series)
|
| Abstract: |
This assessment has been informed by a proportionate level of information sufficient to understand the architectural values of the building, its heritage significances, and the impact on them of the refurbishment works carried out under consent.
A preliminary site visit was also undertaken as part of this assessment. The primary objectives of the site visit were to acquire an overview of the character of the building and its heritage significances prior to work commencing and make a photographic record of the building in its pre-refurbishment state. Later visits were made to monitor the refurbishment works to record fabric revealed or about to be removed or concealed.
Work had already commenced before our first visit. This meant that some walls and partitions already removed could not be fully recorded or analysed pre-refurbishment. However, enough was left to enable understanding of the form before works began. Much or this affected recent alterations to the building, but there was some older fabric also identified which had been affected. Much of the superficial stripping out had taken place before our first visit. For example, the two first-floor customer lavatories (rooms 1.1 and 1.6) had been stripped of the actual fittings and the wall tiles had all been removed. Whatever the studs on the south-east wall of 1.1 had supported had also gone. The present building originated as three separate structures on the corner of Bird Street and the entrance to the site of the former medieval friary (now a late 19th-century street called The Friary). In 1849 the buildings on the Site were held as three plots under five leases. One of these plots (comprising two of the leases) was owned and occupied by the National Provincial Bank. By 1884 the bank had taken over all three properties. By this date it is believed that the building had undergone nearly all of a range of alterations intended to amalgamate the buildings into one unified structure.
The southern building fronting the Friary is believed to have been built in the last decades of the 18th century (rather than c.1820 as in the listing). The middle block, is later, probably dating to the first half of the 19th-century, in line with the listing record and abuts the earlier block. The northernmost structure of the three was demolished and replaced by a small single-storey room attached to the middle block, and a way to the rear yard. A programme of unifying all three structures to a common architectural theme was undertaken by the National Provincial Bank between 1849 and 1884.
This programme involved the setting back of the façade of the central block and its re-facing to match that of the earlier structure to its south. The southern block was built in brick faced with ashlar, but it is unclear whether the re-fronted central building is in stucco or stone, because of the thick layers of paint. On balance, the ground floor is thought to be stone. The porch on Bird Street dates to the 1920s and the street elevation and the interior of the porch is of stone.
The interior of the building largely dates to the mid-19th-century refurbishment, although elements of the first phase remain, particularly the first floor room 1.1. While there is a possibility that this is a good reproduction, there is nothing else in the building to suggest this.
The ground floor has been thoroughly gutted for its conversion to a bar (and presumably earlier as a banking hall and offices) and there is almost nothing remaining on this floor that is not late-20th or early 21st century in date. The refurbishment works observed here have predominantly impacted these later elements. On the upper floors some 19th-century stud walls have, however, been removed and new partitions inserted. Overall the significance of the building has not been changed by these alterations. |
| Author: |
P Davenport
|
| Publisher: |
Cotswold Archaeology
|
| Year of Publication: |
2017
|
| Locations: |
| Parish: |
Lichfield |
| County: |
Staffordshire |
| Country: |
England |
| District: |
Lichfield |
|
Grid Reference: 411634, 309404 (Easting, Northing)
|
|
| Subjects / Periods: |
|
| Identifiers: |
| OASIS Id: |
cotswold2-509321 |
| Report id: |
17073 |
|
| Source: |
|
| Relations: |
|
| Created Date: |
15 Aug 2023 |
