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Hereford Rapid Townscape Assessment Plan 5a : Development/ Enhancement Potential (central area) Legend Site of Development/ Enhancement Potential Settlement Area SCALE 1:5000 Herefordshire Council Conservation PO BOX 4 Plough Lane Hereford HR4 0XH Tel.: (01432) 260000 Fax.: (01432) 383031 © This map is reproduced from Ordnance Survey material on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationary Office © Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. 100024168. 2010 69 This page has deliberately been left blank 70 APPENDIX V Hereford Character Area Appraisals 71 This page is deliberately left blank 72 HCA1 Cathedral-Castle Green Character Area 1. Character Statement 1.1 The area has a strong historical identity. Prominent medieval buildings (with later alterations), including Hereford Cathedral, the Bishop’s Palace and the College of Vicars Choral, are set in a landscaped green space; elegant 18th and 19th Century buildings line Castle Street and St Ethelbert’s Street, many with earlier cores or components; the Castle Green is an open space with embanked earthworks. Townscape type: HT1 (elements of HT12 and 13) 2. Location and Physical Setting 2.1 The character area is located within the Hereford central core, immediately north of the River Wye. The ground slopes gently downwards from the north towards the river, and more steeply near the riverbank. The area encompasses the cathedral and associated buildings, The Cathedral Close, the Bishops Palace and gardens, Castle Street and the cathedral schools, Castle Green, Redcliffe Gardens and Cantilupe Gardens. The area boundaries are the river to the south; Gwynne Street-Palace Yard-Broad Street to the west; The Cathedral Close-Harley Court-East Street to the north; Cantilupe Street-Mill Street to the east. Landscape type: HL1 3. Historical Development 3.1 It is thought that the earliest settlement at Hereford may have been established on the gravel terrace overlooking the Wye in the vicinity of the cathedral. The date is uncertain, but archaeological evidence (artefacts and structural remains) of Roman-period activity has been excavated in the Broad Street area. A Saxon burh (town) was established here by the late 9th/early 10th Century. 3.2 A burial ground of late 7th Century date has been identified at Castle Green, and a priory dedicated to St Guthlac (died early 8th Century) is known to have occupied the site later (before moving to a new location at the Priory Portfields during the 12th Century). Hereford Cathedral is recorded as having been rebuilt in stone c. 825, replacing an earlier building, and again rebuilt in the early 11th Century by Bishop Aethelstan. Construction of the present cathedral, dedicated to St Mary and St Ethelbert and the oldest building in the character area, took place during the first half of the 12th Century, probably by Bishop Reynelm. At around this time (late 11th/12th Century) a royal castle was built at Castle Green (the bailey) and on an artificial mound at Castle Hill/Radcliffe Gardens (the keep). This castle was demolished at the end of the Civil War. (The site of an earlier mid 11th Century castle is unknown.) 3.3 Construction of the timber-framed hall of the Bishop’s Palace took place in the late 12th Century, with 18th and 19th Century additions and alterations. The hall was encased in brick in the 18th Century. The original hall of the College of Vicars’ Choral was built on Castle Street in the late 14th Century (part of which still exists at the rear of no. 29). This was replaced in the late 15th Century by a cloistered building on the south east side of the cathedral. (The College was dissolved in 1937 and the buildings became the property of the Dean and Chapter.) A timber-framed barn (originally an aisled hall) on the north side of The Cathedral Close is of late 13th Century date with later alterations. Castle Cliff at Castle Green is also of medieval origin and is thought to have been a domestic building within the castle, later used as a 73 gaol. Many of the buildings in the eastern part of the character area are of 18th or 19th Century date, but may have earlier components. Examples include 17th Century timber-framed structures at Vaga House and The Buttery, Quay Street, and no. 6 Castle Street; and other 17th Century cores or components at nos. 4 and 5 Harley Court, no. 3 Castle Hill, and a brick gazebo at 29 Castle Street. 3.4 Palace Yard (the southern extension of Broad Street) is part of a medieval (or earlier) north-south route that may have included a ford across the river below the Bishop’s Palace. The linear grid street pattern of the Castle Street-East Street area is thought to have originated in the street layout of the late 9th/early 10th Century Saxon town. Quay Street gave access to river-side wharves, used by barges for the transportation of goods (including coal) to and from Hereford up until the early 19th Century. 4. Townscape 4.1 Hereford Cathedral, set in The Cathedral Close, an open green space, dominates the character area. The building, of 12th Century Romanesque architectural style with later features, is constructed of local red ashlar sandstone under lead roofs; the crossing tower is approximately 53m high. Adjoining buildings include the College of Vicars’ Choral, a two-storey cloistered building of coursed sandstone rubble under slate roofs built around an open quadrangle with two attached halls and a boundary wall on the east side of rubble and brick, and the new library building (late 20th Century), an acclaimed modern building of two storeys in sandstone ashlar. The Bishop’s Palace, including a gatehouse (with 17th Century timber-framing), chapel (18th Century) and stables (19th Century), is set in its own grounds to the south of the cathedral. The main front, of Georgian architectural style, is of two storeys in brick under a hipped slate roof (encasing the 12th Century hall). On the east side of the gardens is a high boundary wall of coursed rubble. 4.2 A number of buildings are set around The Cathedral Close. They include three Georgian houses (18th Century): two are of three storeys, one (a Cathedral School building) of two storeys, all are in brick under hipped slate roofs with central entrances and individual architectural details. Also, two 19th Century buildings: a two-storey house (the former Deanery, now a school building) of dressed sandstone under pitched tiled roofs and of E-plan, and a two-storey school building of Gothic design fronted in stone under pitched slate roofs. There is also a timber-framed barn, originally an aisled hall (13th Century), with brick infill and weatherboarding under a pitched slate roof on a dressed stone base. (The building is to be restored as part of a Heritage Lottery Fund bid.) 4.3 Castle Street was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as, “a secluded street of very attractive character” (1963: 189). Castle Street, Castle Hill and St Ethelbert Street are characterised by large Georgian houses (18th-mid 19th Century). Common features include symmetrical front elevation, prominent doorcases and large sash windows. Most are of three storeys (with several of two and one of four); are brick-built (a small number are fronted in stucco); have pitched or hipped slate roofs, in many cases concealed by a parapet. Individual features include flat or pediment hoods, pilasters and fanlights at the entrance; gauged brick flat arches, segmental arches, architraves and pediments to windows; verandah with sheet metal roof; modillions and storeybands. A wing at the rear of no. 29 Castle Street incorporates the 14th Century hall of the College of Vicars’ Choral. On Quay Street are two timber- 74 framed buildings dating to the 17th Century. One, a former barn with brick infill, is now part of a dwelling house; the other, with render infill and recent alterations, is now part of the Cathedral School. Prominent buildings of individual character include: No. 1 Castle Street (Grade II*): a six-bay stuccoed house with moulded architraves and pediments, moulded cornice with modillions, square columns at the entrance, set behind an ashlar sandstone wall with piers, gate piers and railings. Castle House Hotel (Grade II, formerly Castle Pool Hotel), Castle Street: a six-bay stuccoed Italianate villa (converted from two Georgian houses, c. 1870) with moulded architraves, moulded cornice with modillions, central entrance with moulded frieze on enriched columns, and cast-iron balcony. St Ethelbert’s Hospital (Grade II), nos. 15-25 Castle Street: single-storey almshouses of ashlar sandstone under stone tile pitched roof, tablet with episcopal seal over door, and Gothic arch windows (rebuilt 1805). Nos. 2-12 (even) St Ethelbert Street (Grade II): a row of elegant three- storey townhouses with stuccoed front, engraved cornice and parapet. 4.4 In Ferrers Street there are several three-storey blocks of brick post-1950s walk-up flats. On East Street a former distillery warehouse (19th Century) has been converted into a row of two-storey redbrick houses under a pitched slate roof with small forecourts enclosed by low brick walls. Two large buildings are located on Castle Green. The Fosse (early 19th Century) is a prominent two-storey stuccoed house with pitched slate roofs, a turret with ogee metal roof, balustrades, tall octagonal chimney stacks, a porch with arched entrance, and a small front garden enclosed by a low stuccoed wall with piers and iron railings. Castle Cliffe (13th/14th Century, altered in the 19th Century), a surviving building of Hereford Castle, is a row of two-storey houses of sandstone rubble under hipped tile and slate roofs, rendered to the left, altered and extended, and screened by hedges at the front.

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