Wyggeston House, Leicester, City of Leicester

Summary

A multi-phase former dwelling, originally a timber-framed merchant’s house of around 1490, extensively remodelled around 1760 with a new front range, rebuilt to the rear in the C19, now a bar and restaurant.

Description

MATERIALS: The earliest part of the building is timber-framed, with a low stone plinth. There are C18 and C19 additions in brick, with chimneys to the gables. Both have Swithland slate and Welsh slate roof coverings, the former laid to diminishing courses.

PLAN: The building has an irregular plan, reflecting its evolved development. The brick front range to Applegate is L-shaped, and clasps an earlier timber-framed wing within its inner angle. This in turn has a perpendicular rectangular-plan extension at its west end.

EXTERIOR: The C18 red brick range to Applegate (formerly High Cross Street) is of three storeys and six bays. The near-symmetrical front elevation rises from a low ashlar plinth. Five of the six bays are set between giant pilasters with ornately decorated capitals. The sixth bay, beyond the right-hand pilaster incorporates a side passage with a semi-circular headed doorway and above, narrow blind window openings to the upper floors. The remaining five-bay section of the elevation has a central doorway with a wooden doorcase, below a traceried fanlight and an open pediment. The four flanking ground floor window openings have semi-circular heads, and six-over-six pane windows with additional radial glazing bars to the upper sashes. The window openings to the upper floors have six over six-pane sash frames set below flat rubbed-brick arches. There are storey bands to the upper floors and a sill course to the first floor, and emphasis is given to the window openings above the central doorway; the first floor window has an ashlar surround with a segmental pediment over and balustrade below, and the second floor has an ashlar surround with a shallow-bracketed canopy. At eaves level is a deep painted wooden modillion cornice. The south gable is plainly detailed and bears the rendered and painted scar of a removed lower building formerly attached to Wyggeston House; a short three-storey extension projects to the rear (west), with a shallow-pitched slated roof. To the rear of the C18 range is an attached two-storey timber-framed wing. The jettied upper floor, with its shallow moulded bressumer, is close studded with painted render infill panels and straight diagonal bracing. Integral to the framing are two, two-light windows and a central five-light window, with leaded glazing within slim wooden frames. The ground floor comprises an almost continuous band of wooden-mullioned windows, arranged 3:6:6:5:3 in groups of tall, narrow lights, with major mullions between the individual groups. Below the windows is a band of short studs set on a shallow plinth of rubble stonework. At the east end of the wing is a doorway set below a deep three-light overlight. Attached at the west end of the timber-framed wing is the rendered and painted end bay of an attached C19 brick extension which runs across the full width of the wing, and into which the timber-framed wing extends internally. The rendered bay incorporates a doorway with attached slender columns supporting a shallow flat hood, and above, a deeply-set window with C21 joinery, beneath a hood-mould. The front elevation of this extension is now much altered.

INTERIOR: The interiors of both the C18 range and the attached timber-framed wing have both undergone alteration as a result of the most recent change of use to bar and restaurant. The spatial characteristics of both phases of construction remain legible, and both parts of the complex retain visible historic fabric, but many of the interior fittings and surface finishes are the result of recent refurbishment. The two ground floor rooms of the C18 range retain some contemporary joinery and plaster cornices. The entrance hallway has an internal doorcase with a deep rectangular overlight, incorporating radiating metal glazing bars. At the end of the hallway, doorways on either side give access to the front rooms. A semi-circular arched doorway gives access to a dog-leg staircase with a ramped moulded handrail, column newel posts and slender stick balusters, and provides access to the upper floors of both sections of the building. The rooms to the upper floors of the C18 range are more plainly detailed, some with contemporary slate hearths. The ground floor of the timber-framed range now incorporates a C19 or replica bar counter and bar back fittings, but retains substantial original exposed joists to the upper floor. The inner faces of the mullions and major mullions to the glazed north wall are deeply moulded. The upper floor to the timber-framed wing is undivided, and retains arch-braced tie beams carried on jowl posts, supporting queen posts, slender collar beams and a single tier of clasped purlins. The exposed common rafters are coupled, with short straight wind braces carried on thicker principal rafters rising to support the side purlins. Two of the trusses at the west end retain sections of original daub and thin stone infill within the closed upper sections of the trusses.

History

Leicester is one of the oldest settlements in England and its origins can be traced back at least to the Iron Age. There is significant remaining evidence of the Roman settlement particularly on the east bank of the River Soar where the bath house and palaestra at Jewry wall represent the only standing remains of Ratae Corieltauvorum and one of the largest standing pieces of Roman civilian building in the country. However, there is little known of the settlement between the Roman departure and the medieval period.

In the Middle Ages, Leicester became an increasingly important urban centre. William the Conqueror ordered the construction of the first motte and bailey castle in the late C11. This was later rebuilt in stone and the great hall survives containing one of the finest medieval interiors in the country. The city became closely associated with Simon De Montfort who became the Lord of the Town in 1281, and one of the city’s two universities is named after him. The town also became closely linked to the royal family through the earldoms of Leicester and Lancaster, which were joined under one person, Robert Beaumont, in the late C14. This led to further expansion and prosperity in the late-middle and early-modern periods.

The town also became a focus for religious devotion, with an area next to the Castle known as the Newarke, being the location for a collegiate church as well as other religious centres. After his death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the body of King Richard III was brought to the town and buried in the church of the Greyfriars, a Franciscan abbey which tradition has it had been founded by De Montfort in the late C13. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey in 1530 on his way to face trial in London and was buried there. Other major individuals to be associated with the city include Robert Dudley, who was made Earl of Leicester by Elizabeth I.

The church of Greyfriars was destroyed in 1538, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The site was sold and a manor house built with an associated estate. Both the monastic buildings and the location of Richard’s tomb were lost by the late C17. The manor belonged to Alderman Robert Herrick and remained in the family until the early C18 when it was sold to Thomas Pares. The former Greyfriars precinct was then divided with a new thoroughfare, called New Street laid north-south across it. The street plan more generally continues to resemble that of the medieval borough, although street names have changed, the boundaries of the precinct remain largely legible.

Throughout the early C18 the two parts of the estate were gradually parcelled and sold for development. It was in the Georgian period that the wider Greyfriars estate was developed, primarily as residences for the professional and polite classes. Many of the remaining buildings date to that period and are domestic in both scale and character. Industry did encroach at the fringes and commercial activities and industry such as hosiery appear on the 1888 map of the area. Latterly the area became the legal centre for Leicester and many of the buildings were converted into offices. The manor house was demolished in 1872 although its garden remained unencumbered of development, as did that of 17 Friar Lane. Both became car parks in the C20.

Leicester itself became an industrial centre following the construction of the Grand Union Canal, which linked the town to London and Birmingham at the end of the C18. By 1800 the population had reached over 17,000 and continued to grow throughout the C19. The first railway arrived in the 1830s and Leicester was linked to the mainline network by the 1840s. Significant industrial expansion followed, including textiles, hosiery and footwear, and this period of expansion saw many surviving buildings from earlier periods in the Greyfriars area either replaced or refaced in brick. The C19 also saw the construction of several large schools in the area.

Although the city faced significant economic and social challenges in the C20 it remains a vibrant urban centre and is now known as one of the most culturally diverse cities in Britain. The Greyfriars area has been the focus of international attention and economic investment since the remarkable discovery of the remains of King Richard III under a council car park in 2012 and his re-burial in the Cathedral in 2015. Extensive research and archaeological investigation following these events led to the scheduling of the former monastic site in December 2017 (see List entry 1442955) and the renaming of the Guildhall / Cathedral Conservation Area to Greyfriars Conservation Area.

Wyggeston House is understood to have been built around 1490 for Roger Wyggeston, a wealthy wool merchant and a member of a prominent Leicester family. The building is thought to have originally included a shop in an east cross-wing, and a kitchen in a west cross-wing; the east cross-wing was demolished around 1760 and replaced by a red brick Georgian range fronting High Cross Street (now Applegate), and the kitchen range was replaced in the C19. The house belonged to a Mr Stephens in the late C18 and early C19, and in the 1820s the Reverend Richard Stephens, probably an heir, sold the house and removed medieval stained-glass panels from the medieval hall to his vicarage at Belgrave. For much of the early-Victorian period the house was occupied by a series of doctors, their families and servants. From about 1858 to 1863 it was occupied by the Penitentiary, a school for fallen women, to whom it taught household skills and religious education, and found jobs for the women as servants. From 1901 to 1910 the house was an antiques shop, after which it became an annex of Wyggeston's School, and later council offices. It was restored for use as a museum of costume in 1974, focusing on the history and heritage of Leicester’s knitting and hosiery manufacture. The museum closed in 2000, and the building was adapted for use as a bar and restaurant.

Reasons for Listing

Wyggeston House, a multi-phase former dwelling, originally a timber-framed merchant’s house of around 1490, extensively remodelled around 1760 with a new front range, rebuilt to the rear in the C19, now a bar and restaurant, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a building which explicitly and clearly documents the transition from the timber-frame vernacular building traditions and plan forms of the late-medieval period to the period of brick construction and polite domestic architectural designs of the C18 and C19.

Historic interest:
* it is located within a significant historic townscape, developed within and around the precinct of the C13 Franciscan friary known as Greyfriars, and makes a notable contribution to its rich architectural character and historic evolution;
* as a well-preserved, multi-phase building which includes a timber-framed wing of around 1490, and which graphically illustrates the evolution of the historic core of Leicester from the late C15 to the mid-C19.

Group value:
* it is surrounded by many designated assets with which it has strong group value, especially the scheduled Greyfriars to the south-east, and the medieval Guildhall (listed at Grade I) and St Martin’s Cathedral (listed at Grade II*) to the east.

External Links

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