Description

COVENTRY
SP 3279 SE UPPER SPON STREET
(North Side)
3/456 Nos 119 to 123
(Consecutive)

II*

Range of houses. Late medieval (probably C15) with circa C16 to C20
alterations. Timber-framed, partly rendered and partly rebuilt in brick.
Corrugated iron and plain tile roofs with gabled ends. Brick axial stacks.

Plan: 6-bay timber-frame divided into 4 single bay cottages and a double
bay and right hand (east) end. Each cottage comprised a hall open at front
and partitioned off at back to form an inner room or workshop with a
pitched roofed chamber above jetted into the hall and with a cross-passage
between the two rooms. Later alterations include insertion of stacks and
floors in C16 and C17, occupation of right hand double bay house by public
house and wings at rear of either end in C19.

2 storeys. Long irregular 7-window south front, centre 3 window bays
rendered, outer bays brick, the left with raised eaves. Various small
window openings and doorways boarded over. C20 shop fronts to left and
right. Timber-framing exposed in left (west) gable end. Rendered at rear
with gable-ended brick wings to right and left.

Interior: Timber framing intact in central bays but mostly rebuilt in
brick in end bays. Roof has principal rafters and collars clasping
purlins, queen-struts an tie-beams and windbraces. Roof raised over bays
1 and 2 but principle rafters remain. Bay 4 (No 122) is remarkably
complete; has head beam to cross-passage partition and axial head-beam and
partition to inner room with large square-section chamber joists with
rounded ends jetted into hall and trimmer for ladder in N.E. corner of
inner room. Bays 1 to 3 (Nos 119, 120 and 121) altered but retain evidence
of identical form to bay 4; smoke-blackening from open hearth fire on
partition between bays 2 and 3 and bay 2 has evidence of pitched-roof over
chamber. Bay 4 has circa C16 inserted timber framed fireplace, built up
in brick in circa C17. Bays 5 and 6 (Nos 123 and 124) although altered in
circa C18-19 have evidence of 2 bay cross-passage plan and roof-=trusses
survive.

Historical Note: In Middle Ages owned by Coventry Priory (Office of
Treasurer) and described in Priory cartulary (1410-11) as 5 cottages and
a message. In 1581 the property of Mercers' Guild of coventry who sold it
in late C17, and by C19 it was recorded as 4 cottages and the Black Swan
P.H.

Source: N.W. Alcock. Report for Coventry City Council.

Listing NGR: SP3258179057

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17540433

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

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas