Monument Type(s):

• HOUSE (17th century - 1610 AD? to 1610 AD?)

Summary

The site of a probable 17th century house.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA1310 - 1989 Evaluation of the Nurses Home site, Shrewsbury by BUFAU
• ESA2033 - 1960 field observation by the Ordnance Survey
• ESA2034 - 1960 field observation by the Ordnance Survey

Description

Demolished c 1909 to provide a site for the new Nurses Home for the Royal Salop Infirmary. The older portion of the Structure was but a wing of the Great Stone House of Sir Richard Lee, the son of Sir Humphrey Lee who built it at some time before 1612. A C18 illustration shows the house as consisting of a central four-storey section with mullioned windows, terminating in a gable. Two massive projecting chimney stacks, one at either angle, rising above the roof-line, give a somewhat turreted appearance. Morris states that it stood just within the line of the Town Walls, opposite the East end of St Mary's Church, and adjacent to the buildings of the Salop Infirmary. This would put it at SJ4938 1263, the site of the Nurses Home <1a>
However, when the OS consulted Mr James of Rowley's House Museum in 1960, he located the building on a 1:500 scale map of 1882 at SJ4936 1265. OS FI 1960 <1>

A car park just to the north of this latter location was the subject of an evaluation exercise by BUFAU in 1989 <3>

Former stone building, on the site of/demolished for the present Nurses Home built in 1908-10. Built by Humphrey Lea, c.1610. In the St Mary's Parish Book of 1646 it was described as 'the great stone house of Sir Richard Lea of Langley', (son of the builder). Formerly consisted of a two room basement, with its back wall allegedly on the line of the town wall. Elevations of the back wall show a depressed 4-centre arched doorway and a 3-light stone mullioned window; a large chimney projected from the north-east corner, with an irregular sloping buttress supporting it. Above the basement had been three or more floors each originally of one room only. During excavations at the time of demolition a 'paved footway' was found against the east side of the building, outside the town wall, and about five feet (1.52m) below 'the present level' (1909). An extension was built in front (west) of the building in the late 18th century. The building seems once to have been more extensive, as an 18th-century oil painting reproduced in Morris's article shows [<1a>]. A short note of 1903 describes a visit to find the 'friars' postern gate opposite St Mary's'; the anonymous author claimed to have found it, with 'a modern lintel' in the portion of the town wall built on by the stone house [<4>]. No such feature was however described by Morris six years later, so what was actually seen is uncertain. <5>

Possibly the source of Grinshill sandstone masonry fragments found during repairs to St. Mary's Water Gate in 2016 (see PRN 10549). <6>

Sources

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.