Description

LAUNCESTON

SX3284 HIGH STREET
660-1/4/68 (North West side)
27/02/50 No.4
incorporating the Judge's Kitchen

GV II*

Probable merchant's house. C16, or early C17, remodelled early
C18. Render on timber-frame with moulded wooden cornices to
shallow jetties to front; rear and wing has render on rubble
to ground floor and slatehanging on studwork above; steep rag
slate roof with 2 gabled dormers and deeply coved eaves
cornice; stone stack on right.
Courtyard plan including deep wing at right-angles to rear
right and wing returned parallel to rear (the Judges Kitchen).
3 storeys; 4-window range with late C19 two-pane horned sashes
within wooden architraves. Ground floor has house doorway with
panelled door on the left and large late C20 shop front on its
right.
Rear has C18 stair window with thick glazing bars.
Left-hand elevation of rear wing has carved lead gutter dated
1707; original former 3-light granite mullioned window with 1
original leaded light and 1 mullion removed breaking eaves at
far right; 2 mid C19 12-pane hornless sashes on its left and
late C19 fourteen-pane horned sash to far left; ground floor
with pentice roof and 8-pane horned sashes in possible
original openings in pairs of lights with rendered mullions
between and original 4-centred arched chamfered doorway on the
right. Other elevation has at least one C18 window with thick
glazing bars.
Wing, known as the Judges Kitchen, returned parallel and
enclosing yard at rear has similar original doorway on its
right; 4-pane horned sash breaking eaves above; projecting
gable resembling pediment on left over blind 1st floor and
blocked window to ground floor.
INTERIOR: C16 floor structures and roof structure, with both
trenched and butt purlins, to front range; some floor
structure and original roof structure, with feet of trusses
only, visible to rear wing.
Interior of the Judges Kitchen not accessible except for
ground-floor passage later cut through from inside its
original doorway (with internal oak lintels) to right-hand
wing.
This evidence suggests that these 2 wings may not have had
internal communication originally. Surviving original features
include: 2 moulded oak doorways to 2nd floor between front and
adjoining wing with cup and cover stops, the other with armour
stops, both with original 9-panel studded doors; some
panelling to 1st-floor landing area and some ovolo-moulded
doorframes; later C17 scratch-moulded door (repaired C19)
between front attics.
C18 features include: open-well closed-string staircase with
pulvinated frieze; fairly heavy turned balusters; moulded
handrail, newel caps and pendants; ovolo-moulded panelling to
wide passage beside shop including a round-arched niche and
frame for fireplace; communicating doorway between landing and
rear room of wing and several 2-panel doors; bolection-moulded
chimneypiece to 2nd-floor right.
Mid C19 remodelling of rear right-hand wing includes a curved
open-well stair; quadrant-on plan door and an iron grate.
HISTORY: reputed to be a former house of "The Hanging Judge",
Judge Jefferies.
An interesting and remarkably (for Cornwall) complete large
probable merchant's house built around 3 sides of a courtyard
at rear and adjoining the former castle ditch.

Listing NGR: SX3317684628

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17532573

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)