Description:-
12 Applegate, formerly 18 Highcross Street, popularly known as 'Wyggeston’s House', lies in what was the most important commercial street in medieval Leicester. Until road widening in the C20th it was the widest street inside the walls; however, Highcross Street declined commercially centre over a period of four hundred years. Only a part of the original medieval timbered house survives. On the street front there would have stood a timber-framed shop of two storeys. This was probably destroyed when the present Georgian front was built. There may also have been a single storied medieval kitchen under the Victorian extension at the back. The remaining medieval fragment of the house dates to around 1500. The hall on the ground floor served as the main living area. The first floor would probably have been divided into several chambers used for storing goods and sleeping. The long range of windows on the ground floor originally housed a set of painted glass windows with religious scenes. These contained the initials RW or WR. It is uncertain if these stood for Roger Wyggeston or William Rowlat both wealthy merchants and mayors of Leicester. Either of these men may have lived at Wyggeston’s House.
John Thorsby, identifies the house as belonging to a Mr Stephens in the late C18th/early C19th. In the 1820s the Reverend Richard Stephens, probably an heir, sold Wigston’s House. However, he first removed the medieval stained glass panels from the hall and took them to his vicarage at Belgrave. After 1820, street directories, the census from 1841 and surviving deeds from 1850 allow us to reconstruct who owned and lived in the house. For much of the Victorian period the house was occupied by a series of doctors, their families and servants. From about 1858 to 1863 it was occupied by the Penitentiary, a school for fallen women whom it taught household skills and religious education. The charity attempted to place its inmates in jobs as servants. From 1901 to 1911 the house was an antiques shop as shown in the photograph of the period, the owner was a Mrs Renals. After 1911 Wyggeston’s House became an annex of Wyggeston's School used for art classes and later council offices. It was restored for use as a museum of costume in 1974, focusing on the history and heritage of Leicester’s knitting and hosiery manufacture. The museum closed in 2000, and the building was adapted for use as a bar and restaurant.
The medieval part of Wyggeston’s House is of timber-framed construction built upon stone foundations. A carpenter would have made most of the main timber before putting up the box-shaped frame. The timbers would have been slotted together using oak pegs (not iron nails) to secure the joints. The outside and inside walls of the house were made by infilling the timber frame with wattle and daub, a mud-based mixture. Stones were also used to infill the end wall of the first floor of the hall. This construction can now be clearly seen in the upper room but originally would have been originally hidden by white wash painted on as waterproofing. During the restoration very faint traces of wall painting were found on the inside walls of this room. A section of the house shows the construction of the timber frame. The upper floor projects over the courtyard forming an overhanging jetty, a common feature of medieval houses.
Wyggeston’s House is probably the most complete surviving domestic residence of medieval Leicester. There are very few medieval timber buildings surviving in the town. Together with the roof trusses in the Great Hall of the nearby Guildhall, this is the only opportunity in Leicester for people to see up close traditional building methods that were extensively used in Leicester until the C18th.
Wyggeston’s House shows timber-framed (queen post) construction, and a good example of a running jetty. It is associated with internationally important medieval glass from a non-religious context, which may show the earliest image of a citizen of Leicester. The Borough arms appear in the glass (which has links with the Guildhall glass); both of the candidates for the 'WR' or 'RW' initials in the glass were mayors of Leicester.
A late medieval and post-medieval house built c.1480 and thought to have been the home of Roger Wyggeston. The building comprises a late C18th brick front of five bays and a timber-framed rear-wing (early C16th) at right-angles to the frontage. The rear wing, possibly originally of three bays, has been truncated by the later C19th range, which may also have replaced an opposing cross-wing.
The front dates from about 1760. The rear elevation probably dates from the very early years of the C16th.
Details
A multi-phase former dwelling, originally a timber-framed merchant’s house of around 1490, extensively remodelled around 1760 with a new front range, rebuilt to the rear in the C19, now a bar and restaurant.
MATERIALS: The earliest part of the building is timber-framed, with a low stone plinth. There are C18 and C19 additions in brick, with chimneys to the gables. Both have Swithland slate and Welsh slate roof coverings, the former laid to diminishing courses.
PLAN: The building has an irregular plan, reflecting its evolved development. The brick front range to Applegate is L-shaped, and clasps an earlier timber-framed wing within its inner angle. This in turn has a perpendicular rectangular-plan extension at its west end.
EXTERIOR: The C18 red brick range to Applegate (formerly High Cross Street) is of three storeys and six bays. The near-symmetrical front elevation rises from a low ashlar plinth. Five of the six bays are set between giant pilasters with ornately decorated capitals. The sixth bay, beyond the right-hand pilaster incorporates a side passage with a semi-circular headed doorway and above, narrow blind window openings to the upper floors. The remaining five-bay section of the elevation has a central doorway with a wooden doorcase, below a traceried fanlight and an open pediment. The four flanking ground floor window openings have semi-circular heads, and six-over-six pane windows with additional radial glazing bars to the upper sashes. The window openings to the upper floors have six over six-pane sash frames set below flat rubbed-brick arches. There are storey bands to the upper floors and a sill course to the first floor, and emphasis is given to the window openings above the central doorway; the first floor window has an ashlar surround with a segmental pediment over and balustrade below, and the second floor has an ashlar surround with a shallow-bracketed canopy. At eaves level is a deep painted wooden modillion cornice. The south gable is plainly detailed and bears the rendered and painted scar of a removed lower building formerly attached to Wyggeston House; a short three-storey extension projects to the rear (west), with a shallow-pitched slated roof. To the rear of the C18 range is an attached two-storey timber-framed wing. The jettied upper floor, with its shallow moulded bressumer, is close studded with painted render infill panels and straight diagonal bracing. Integral to the framing are two, two-light windows and a central five-light window, with leaded glazing within slim wooden frames. The ground floor comprises an almost continuous band of wooden-mullioned windows, arranged 3:6:6:5:3 in groups of tall, narrow lights, with major mullions between the individual groups. Below the windows is a band of short studs set on a shallow plinth of rubble stonework. At the east end of the wing is a doorway set below a deep three-light overlight. Attached at the west end of the timber-framed wing is the rendered and painted end bay of an attached C19 brick extension which runs across the full width of the wing, and into which the timber-framed wing extends internally. The rendered bay incorporates a doorway with attached slender columns supporting a shallow flat hood, and above, a deeply-set window with C21 joinery, beneath a hood-mould. The front elevation of this extension is now much altered.
INTERIOR: The interiors of both the C18 range and the attached timber-framed wing have both undergone alteration as a result of the most recent change of use to bar and restaurant. The spatial characteristics of both phases of construction remain legible, and both parts of the complex retain visible historic fabric, but many of the interior fittings and surface finishes are the result of recent refurbishment. The two ground floor rooms of the C18 range retain some contemporary joinery and plaster cornices. The entrance hallway has an internal doorcase with a deep rectangular overlight, incorporating radiating metal glazing bars. At the end of the hallway, doorways on either side give access to the front rooms. A semi-circular arched doorway gives access to a dog-leg staircase with a ramped moulded handrail, column newel posts and slender stick balusters, and provides access to the upper floors of both sections of the building. The rooms to the upper floors of the C18 range are more plainly detailed, some with contemporary slate hearths. The ground floor of the timber-framed range now incorporates a C19 or replica bar counter and bar back fittings, but retains substantial original exposed joists to the upper floor. The inner faces of the mullions and major mullions to the glazed north wall are deeply moulded. The upper floor to the timber-framed wing is undivided, and retains arch-braced tie beams carried on jowl posts, supporting queen posts, slender collar beams and a single tier of clasped purlins. The exposed common rafters are coupled, with short straight wind braces carried on thicker principal rafters rising to support the side purlins. Two of the trusses at the west end retain sections of original daub and thin stone infill within the closed upper sections of the trusses. |