TOPOGRAPHY 1547–1720
During the first hundred years of the period there were no major changes in the plan
or extent of Gloucester. In the early 17th century there was some new building in the
cathedral close (fn. 1) and, as a result of a quickening of activity in the river trade, at the
quay. Most of the houses and warehouses fronting the south part of the quay were
built on land leased by the city corporation in 1610, 1620, and 1633. (fn. 2) Otherwise the
main activity in the late 16th century and the early 17th was the rebuilding and
embellishment of the city's timber-framed houses. One indication of that process was
the increase in the number of purpresture rents payable to the corporation for
encroachments on the common soil: c. 120 such rents were payable in 1630, about two
thirds of them incurred since 1544. Many were for 'underbuildings', probably for new
encroachments caused by jettying, and some specified new 'parlour windows'. (fn. 3) The
city's houses remained almost exclusively of timber frame until the mid 17th century.
The earliest house of brick found recorded was one built by John Hanbury c. 1633 on
the north side of Bearland. (fn. 4)
Figure 6:
A house in Westgate Street (no. 26): the elevation to the side alley
Timber framing continued to be used for street fronts and for the less visible back
elevations, and, as in the late medieval period, both close studding and box framing,
with decorative bracing, remained fashionable; floors were often emphasized by
overhanging jetties. Among the isolated examples that survived in 1984, no. 8 Hare
Lane, which is perhaps of the late 16th century, has close studding, while no. 26
Westgate Street, which was built in several stages, probably in the earlier 17th
century, has ovolo-moulded mullion and transom windows and a fireplace dated
1622. (fn. 5) The latter house is of four storeys with attics, but a more common height was
two or three storeys. A house in lower Westgate Street (the folk museum) is of three
storeys with prominent gables and shallow oriel windows beneath the jetties. The
'Golden Cross' in Southgate Street is a notable example of decorative box framing,
but some of the framing was evidently redesigned in the 19th century when new
fenestration was inserted. No. 9 Southgate Street, which has a carved wooden
fireplace with the date 1650 and the arms of the Yate family of Arlingham, (fn. 6) has the
most decorative timber front in the city.
The major changes in the city during the period occurred at the time of the Civil
War and Interregnum. Most notably there was a sudden reduction in its size by the
burning of the roadside suburbs outside the gates by the defenders at the start of the
siege on 10 August 1643. (fn. 7) As John Dorney, the town clerk, described it, the city
became 'as a garment without skirts, which we were willing to part with all, lest our
enemies should sit upon them'. (fn. 8) Including some pulled down in the course of the
siege, a total of 241 houses was lost, later valued together with their contents at
£28,740. Outside the south gate 88 houses were destroyed in Severn Street, lower
Southgate Street, and Small Lane, including most of the property of Gloucester's
main private landowners, the Dennis family, who had succeeded to the former
Llanthony Priory property acquired after the Dissolution by Sir Thomas Bell;
beyond the east gate 67 houses were destroyed in the inner Barton Street suburb;
beyond the outer north gate in Newland and Fete Lane, and in Brook Street,
69 houses; and beyond Alvin gate and in Kingsholm hamlet 17 houses. (fn. 9) The
destruction outside the gates was probably not total, however: a few early timber
cottages remained in inner Barton Street in 1984, while the Littleworth suburb on
the Bristol road south of the junction with Severn Street may have escaped the
burning. (fn. 10)
After the siege no effort was made to rebuild the suburbs, but a new development,
intended to make up some of the loss, (fn. 11) was promoted by the corporation within the
city on land north of the castle between the quay and the west end of Longsmith
Street. In Marybone Park, a railed-off piece of waste ground between the quay and
Castle Lane, (fn. 12) the corporation leased 11 plots for building in 1644, 1645, and 1647,
and a row of new houses was built on them fronting the south side of Quay Street. (fn. 13)
The largest house, standing at the corner with Castle Lane, was built by John
Singleton, an innkeeper, in 1647 and became the New Bear inn. (fn. 14) The land east of
Castle Lane, known as the Bearland, was traditionally a site of common dunghills, (fn. 15)
and was still used for that purpose in 1631 when the dunghill used by the Boothall inn
was required to be walled off from the roadway. (fn. 16) Five houses were built on the south
side of the road at Bearland on land leased by the corporation in 1644, four of them on
a plot taken by a carpenter, William Sparks. (fn. 17) Another house at Bearland (later
known, imprecisely, as Marybone House) was built on a plot leased in 1651 to Walter
Harris, a cordwainer; it was acquired before 1686 by Alderman Benjamin Hyett, (fn. 18) a
lawyer, and was later enlarged, remaining a residence of the Hyett family for several
generations. (fn. 19)
The Civil War and Interregnum also saw some major changes to the city's stock of
public buildings, notably the loss of several of its churches. St. Owen's was taken
down at the start of the siege; in 1648 the corporation rebuilt the Tolsey,
incorporating the adjoining church of All Saints within it; and in the mid 1650s the
churches of St. Aldate, St. Catherine, and St. Mary de Grace were all demolished. (fn. 20)
There were, however, some improvements to the secular public buildings. Apart
from the new Tolsey, new market houses were provided in Eastgate Street and
Southgate Street in 1655 and 1660 respectively. (fn. 21)
Figure 7:
The Island and the quay from the south, c. 1710, with Westgate bridge on the left and the Old Severn and the Foreign bridge at the right centre; St. Bartholomew's Hospital stands north of the main road in the Island and the great glasshouse west of the mouth of the Old Severn
In the late 17th century and the early 18th, a period when Gloucester enjoyed a new
popularity as a resort for the local gentry, (fn. 22) rebuilding of some of the houses with
more fashionable brick fronts began to transform the appearance of the city's principal
streets. Brick was made locally from the mid 1640s, (fn. 23) and most of the new houses in
the Marybone Park and Bearland development were of brick, though at least one was
of timber; (fn. 24) by the end of the century brick was also being imported from Worcester
and other places on the river. (fn. 25) By 1714, though gabled timber fronts still
predominated in the four main streets, (fn. 26) there were substantial numbers of the new
brick façades (fn. 27) with their heavy cornices, long-and-short stone quoins, and sash
windows. (fn. 28) In some cases the old timber houses were merely refronted rather than
being completely rebuilt, as was the case with a house in Northgate Street, for which a
builder's contract of 1701 specified a three-storeyed brick front with six sash
windows. (fn. 29)
The largest of the new brick houses were detached dwellings built away from the
main streets, presumably attracted to their sites by the availability of land for large
gardens. One of the earliest, built soon after 1681 when the site was leased to
Alderman John Webb, (fn. 30) was a house (later called Elton House) on the south side of
the entrance to Barton Street; it had a hipped roof, mullioned and transomed
windows, and prominent ornamental gatepiers. (fn. 31) About 1704 Ladybellegate House,
with a tall façade with seven bays of sash windows, was built by Henry Wagstaffe on
the north side of Longsmith Street. (fn. 32) Bearland House, opposite the south end of
Berkeley Street, was also of late 17th- or early 18th-century origin, though extended
and refronted later. Despite the new building much open land remained, much of it
laid out as formal gardens, nurseries, and orchards. (fn. 33)
By the end of the period the growth of commercial activity connected with the river
trade had caused new industrial building in the riverside area called the Island. (fn. 34) A
great conical glasshouse was built just west of the entrance of Dockham ditch (or the
Old Severn) in 1694 and a conical limekiln was built east of the ditch in 1696. (fn. 35)
Another building shown on a view of c. 1710, by Dockham ditch north of the Foreign
bridge, was probably a glasshouse, (fn. 36) and standing by the riverside was a tall structure
of four storeys and attics, possibly built as a sugar refinery. (fn. 37) By the early 18th
century the Island was also the site of a number of malthouses. (fn. 38)