Queen's Aid House
Encyclopedia
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
, black-and-white Elizabethan
Elizabethan architecture
Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...
merchant's house in Nantwich
Nantwich
Nantwich is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town gives its name to the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich...
, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, England. It is located on the High Street immediately off the town square and opposite the junction with Castle Street (at ). It is listed at grade II. Built shortly after the fire of 1583 by Thomas Cleese, a local craftsman, it has three storeys with attics, and features ornamental panelling, overhangs or jetties
Jettying
Jettying is a building technique used in medieval timber frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of increasing the available space in the building without obstructing the street...
at each storey, and a 19th-century oriel window
Oriel window
Oriel windows are a form of bay window commonly found in Gothic architecture, which project from the main wall of the building but do not reach to the ground. Corbels or brackets are often used to support this kind of window. They are seen in combination with the Tudor arch. This type of window was...
. The building is best known for its contemporary inscription commemorating Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
's aid in rebuilding the town, which gives the building its name. It has been used as a café, as well as various types of shop.
The High Street was the home of the wealthiest townspeople in the 1580s, and the houses dating from the rebuilding form the finest examples of post-fire architecture in the town. The modern High Street still contains many other good examples of Elizabethan timber-framed buildings, all of which date from after the fire; these include the grade-II*-listed number 46
46 High Street, Nantwich
46 High Street is a timber-framed, black-and-white Elizabethan merchant's house in Nantwich, Cheshire, England, located in the town square at the corner of High Street and Castle Street . The present building dates from shortly after the fire of 1583, and is believed to have been built for Thomas...
, which stands opposite the Queen's Aid House, and the grade-I-listed Crown Inn
Crown Hotel, Nantwich
The Crown Hotel, also known as the Crown Inn, is a timber-framed, black-and-white hotel and public house located at 24–26 High Street in the town of Nantwich in Cheshire, England. The present building dates from shortly after 1583...
.
History
In December of 1583, a fire destroyed most of Nantwich to the east of the River WeaverRiver Weaver
The River Weaver is a river, navigable in its lower reaches, running in a curving route anti-clockwise across west Cheshire, northern England. Improvements to the river to make it navigable were authorised in 1720 and the work, which included eleven locks, was completed in 1732...
. According to the contemporary account of Richard Wilbraham, 150 houses burned down, and the devastation was such that a national relief fund was organised to help pay for the town's rebuilding. The appeal was successful: "every person damaged in the loss of their houses have been holpen and relieved in some portion". Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
personally contributed – the only time that she is known to have done so – giving £1000 (around £200,000 today).
The Queen's Aid House was built as a merchant's house shortly after the fire by local craftsman Thomas Cleese. Cleese (also known as Clease or Clowes) appears to have been the town's master builder from around 1550 until after the fire. He is also known to have built Churche's Mansion
Churche's Mansion
Churche's Mansion is a timber-framed, black-and-white Elizabethan mansion house at the eastern end of Hospital Street in Nantwich, Cheshire, England...
, a grade-I-listed Elizabethan
Elizabethan architecture
Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...
mansion at the end of Hospital Street, as well as the roofs to the north and south transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
s of St Mary's Church
St Mary's Church, Nantwich
St Mary's Church, Nantwich, is in the centre of the market town of Nantwich, Cheshire, England. The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. It has been called the "Cathedral of South Cheshire" and it is considered by some to be one of the finest medieval...
. The building bears a signed inscription dated 1584, and the house is likely to have been completed that year. The original owner is unknown. Based on the signature to the inscription, it has been suggested that Cleese built the house for himself; before the fire, however, he was recorded as a tenant in Pepper Street. In the original layout, there would have been a shop on the ground floor facing the street, with a hall behind giving access to a buttery
Buttery (room)
A buttery was a domestic room in a large medieval house. Along with the pantry, it was generally part of the offices pertaining to the kitchen. Reached from the screens passage at the low end of the Great Hall the buttery was traditionally the place from which the yeoman of the buttery served beer...
and kitchen.
The well-known Nonconformist
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
preacher, Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry was an English commentator on the Bible and Presbyterian minister.-Life:He was born at Broad Oak, a farmhouse on the borders of Flintshire and Shropshire. His father, Philip Henry, had just been ejected under the Act of Uniformity 1662...
, died of apoplexy
Apoplexy
Apoplexy is a medical term, which can be used to describe 'bleeding' in a stroke . Without further specification, it is rather outdated in use. Today it is used only for specific conditions, such as pituitary apoplexy and ovarian apoplexy. In common speech, it is used non-medically to mean a state...
in the house on 22 June 1714, after visiting the town to preach at the Presbyterian Meeting House on Pepper Street. He was staying with the Reverend Joseph Mottershead
Joseph Mottershead
-Life:The son of Joseph Mottershead, yeoman, he was born near Stockport, Cheshire, on 17 August 1688. He was educated at Attercliffe Academy under Timothy Jollie, and afterwards studied for a year under Matthew Henry at Chester....
, the minister of the Meeting House.
When local historian James Hall wrote in the 1880s, the Queen's Aid House had been a grocer's shop for at least a century, and had then been occupied by William Sandford since at least 1874. On 16 November 1882, it survived a fire which destroyed its neighbour, a draper's shop. It remained a grocer's shop run by Wardle & Hughes and later Arthur Bentley until at least 1914. In the 1910s and 1920s it was the Queen Bess Café, which appears in a Nantwich postcard, but by 1939 had returned to being a grocer's, the Star Tea Company. In the 1980s it sold confectionery and tobacco products.
Description
The Queen's Aid House is a tall black-and-white building of three storeys plus attics under a tiled roof, with a timber frameTimber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
infilled with plaster. Each floor is jettied
Jettying
Jettying is a building technique used in medieval timber frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of increasing the available space in the building without obstructing the street...
; the corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
s supporting the overhangs are carved with faces and other motifs. In common with most merchant's houses of this date in Nantwich, its single gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
faces the street, with all the accommodation fitting into a single bay's width. The gable is topped with a finial
Finial
The finial is an architectural device, typically carved in stone and employed decoratively to emphasize the apex of a gable or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure. Smaller finials can be used as a decorative ornament on the ends of curtain rods...
.
There is ornamental panelling to all storeys except the ground floor, which has a modern shop front. Motifs include ogee
Ogee
An ogee is a curve , shaped somewhat like an S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite senses, so that the ends are parallel....
lozenges, similar to the decoration of Churche's Mansion
Churche's Mansion
Churche's Mansion is a timber-framed, black-and-white Elizabethan mansion house at the eastern end of Hospital Street in Nantwich, Cheshire, England...
, as well as quatrefoil
Quatrefoil
The word quatrefoil etymologically means "four leaves", and applies to general four-lobed shapes in various contexts.-In heraldry:In heraldic terminology, a quatrefoil is a representation of a flower with four petals, or a leaf with four leaflets . It is sometimes shown "slipped", i.e. with an...
s and herringbone
Herringbone pattern
The herringbone pattern is an arrangement of rectangles used for floor tilings and road pavement.The blocks can be rectangles or parallelograms...
patterns. The first storey is flanked by a pair of fluted pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s, which are in early Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
style. None of the windows is original. The first storey has a canted
Cant (architecture)
Cant is the architectural term describing part, or segment, of a facade which is at an angle to another part of the same facade. The angle breaking the facade is less than a right angle thus enabling a canted facade to be viewed as, and remain, one composition.Canted facades are a typical of, but...
oriel window
Oriel window
Oriel windows are a form of bay window commonly found in Gothic architecture, which project from the main wall of the building but do not reach to the ground. Corbels or brackets are often used to support this kind of window. They are seen in combination with the Tudor arch. This type of window was...
dating from the 19th century; the second storey has two sash window
Sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...
s, and the attic storey has a single small window with a semicircular arched head. On the second storey, between the two windows, is a carved wooden plaque, which commemorates the aid given by the queen in rebuilding the town:
A second carved inscription, in two panels under the second-storey jetty, reads:
On the interior, the ground-floor room facing the street has beams with ovolo
Ovolo
Ovolo in architecture, is a convex molding known also as the echinus, which in Classical architecture was invariably carved with the egg-and-dart ornament. The molding is called a quarter-round by woodworkers...
moulding.
Modern building
The building was restored in 2010. , it is one of the Rippleglen chain of newsagentNewsagent
A newsagent's shop , newsagency or newsstand is a business that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, snacks and often items of local interest. In Britain and Australia, these businesses are termed newsagents...
's shops.
Sources
- Bavington G et al. Nantwich, Worleston & Wybunbury: A Portrait in Old Picture Postcards (Brampton Publications; 1987) (ISBN 0 9511469 6 3)
- Garton E. Tudor Nantwich: A Study of Life in Nantwich in the Sixteenth Century (Cheshire County Council Libraries and Museums; 1983) (ISBN 0 903017 05 9)
- Hall J. A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich, or Wich Malbank, in the County Palatine of Chester (2nd edn) (E. J. Morten; 1972) (ISBN 0-901598-24-0)
- Lake J. The Great Fire of Nantwich (Shiva Publishing; 1983) (ISBN 0 906812 57 7)
- Pevsner N, Hubbard E. The Buildings of England: Cheshire (Penguin Books; 1971) (ISBN 0 14 071042 6)
- Simpson R. Crewe and Nantwich: A Pictorial History (Phillimore; 1991) (ISBN 0 85033 724 0)