Description

SHREWSBURY

SJ4812NE HILL'S LANE
653-1/10/368 (South West side)
10/01/53 Rowley's House and Rowley's Mansion
(Formerly Listed as:
HILLS LANE
(South side)
Rowley's House)
(Formerly Listed as:
HILLS LANE
(South side)
Rowley's Mansion)

GV II*

Pair of houses, now museum. Later C16 and 1618. Restored 1932.
For Roger Rowley, wool merchant, and his son. Timber-framed
and brick, with plain tiled roofs.
Rowley's House is the earlier of the 2 buildings. Main range
divided by archway through to rear with cross wing projecting
to left of this. 3 storeys with attic. 7-window range in all.
Main range comprises 2 gables, each of 2 bays. Archway to left
in left-hand gable, doorway to left in right-hand gable.
Jettied upper storeys. 2-light casements on each floor, and
3-light windows in gable apex. Framing in square panels with
intermediate studs and tension braces. The framing is not
continuous across the gables, suggesting 2 possible phases of
construction. Rear elevation also comprises 2 gables, with
casement windows of 2 and 3 lights.
Cross range beyond passage framed with similar technique so
possibly of similar date. Doorway in right of gable, with
moulded arched lintel, and casement windows, some with
transoms, on each floor. Roof line of adjacent building now
demolished encapsulated in this gable wall. Some rear
casements have early leaded lights, and some wood mullions are
arranged diagonally, but much of the fenestration has been
renewed in successive restorations. Deep jetty over street in
side wall to left, carried on additional posts.
The former Rowley's Mansion adjoins this timber building to
the right. Brick. 3 storeys with attics, 2 gables to front
elevation, largely blank, reflecting former presence of
adjacent buildings. Side gable has 4-light stone mullioned and
transomed window on each floor, with smaller 2-light windows
each side on ground and first floors. Many of these windows
renewed, apparently during a restoration of 1932. Stone
moulded string courses and angle quoins, which continue across
rear elevation and canted wing.
Rear of front range has full-height squared bay window with
mullioned and transomed windows and strapwork parapet. Porch
in angle of this range and rear wing. Architrave has high
bases enriched with strapwork decoration to moulded shafts
with triglyph frieze in entablature. Doorway in shallow
segmental arch with bulbous keystone and stepped voussoirs. 3-
and 4-light stone mullioned and transomed windows in this wing
do not align on each floor, and the fenestration is
assymetrical on opposite elevation also.
INTERIOR: Rowley's House comprises main ground-floor hall of 5
bays with roughly chamfered cross beams carried on brackets
over projecting wall posts. Stone fireplace in end wall.
Rowley's Mansion adjoins to the right, sharing the end wall
stack. Lower room has square panelled ceiling with rosette
decoration. Staircase, renewed, in canted wing of mansion,
abutting the rear wall of Rowley's House.
Rowley's House built by Roger Rowley who was a wool merchant,
the Mansion built by his son, the earliest brick building in
Shrewsbury.

Listing NGR: SJ4895112598

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17542584

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

• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)