Description

WELLS

ST5445 HIGH STREET
662-1/7/108 (North side)
12/11/53 No.36
Kings Head Hotel

GV II*

Inn. Late C18 facade to C14 building. Brick with stone
dressings, all colourwashed, possible timber-frame; double
roof, hipped with ridges at right angles to road covered with
double Roman clay tiles, brick chimney stacks.
PLAN: right-angle plan, 2 bays wide, with jettied block to
front and hall to rear.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, 2 bays. Rendered plinth, plain parapet
with simple coping, ground floor has fascia across whole of
facade, with a 6-flush-panel door in beaded architrave to
left, then a composite window of 6 sash units of 4+16+4+4+16+4
panes respectively, with continuous sill and large centre
mullion. Above are sash windows in plain openings with
5-keystoned segmental arched heads, the centre keystone
hooded, with 20-pane window to first floor and 18-pane windows
to second. Projecting sign on elaborate early C20 bracket set
between all four upper windows. Plain partly-rendered return
on east side with large painted signboard having segmental
arched head, set at high level.
Building wraps round No.38 (qv) with return elevation along
Union Street, C19 rendered and rubble work colourwashed,
double Roman clay tiled roof, plain gable, brick chimney.
2 storeys, 2 bays. Sash windows of several patterns to first
floor, below a blocked doorway bay 1 and a blocked window bay
2, a segmental arched 2-light casement window bay 3 and a
vertical boarded door to bay 4.
INTERIOR: much modified-essentially in three parts. Front
portion has some deep chamfered beams to ground and first
floor, indications of former jetty in frame at ground floor
level. Centre portion open through to 4-bay roof with 2
intermediate trusses flanking one main truss, the latter a
two-tier base cruck with upper cruck surmounting truss with
short principals and moulded and cusped braces with sunk
spandrels; undersides of bracery and lower collar moulded;
east slope has 3 ranks of purlins, west roof slope cut away
below second purlin, sundry curbed windbraces, intermediate
trusses with upper arched collar only. Other features in this
section are the two staircases up to gallery, and up from this
to second floor front, both of c1800 pattern. Extension at
rear mostly C19/C20.
A good late medieval town house with substantial remains of a
very fine roof structure which invites comparison with the
Glastonbury Abbey Barns; sketch drawings in VAG.
(Gilson RG: Vernacular Architecture Group Report: 1978-).

Listing NGR: ST5485945710

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17553022

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

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)