Building record LVM 148 - De Vere House, Water Street

The property known as De Vere House represents only a fragment of the early-16th century merchant’s house to which it belonged. At just 12 feet wide on the ground floor and 24 feet long, the surviving timber frame was built as an ostentatious extension onto the front of a 15th century open hall, and probably served as a new, more fashionable hall. The earlier hall was demolished in 1926, but is shown in photographs of this date, and was replaced by the existing rear range. A number of houses on the same side of Water Street were extended in similar ways when the medieval open sewer was culverted around 1520, thereby removing the flood risk and the need for an unusually wide street (the culvert still survives beneath the house). The left-hand gable of the original 16th century property (when viewed from the front)is currently in separate occupation, and known as 60 Water Street. This was probably the service cross-wing of the medieval hall, rebuilt around 1525 to extend over the culvert into the newly reclaimed area of street. The new hall, i.e. De Vere House, is open-framed against this cross-wing and may be very slightly later in date. As the two structures undoubtedly belonged to one house when first built, it would be historically appropriate to once again combine the two modern houses into a single dwelling. 60 Water Street was entirely demolished in 1926, as revealed in contemporary accounts and photographs, but was reconstructed in response to a public outcry. However, nothing more than the front gable was restored to the site, and the rest of the cross-wing is a spurious jumble of new and old timbers from various sources. It is not, therefore, possible to identify the precise location of the original door or doors that would have linked 60 Water Street with De Vere House. With the exception of one principal post, all the vertical timbers in the existing ground floor dividing wall date only from the 1920s, and do not form part of the historic fabric. The location of any new connecting doors depends rather upon modern convenience than history. The insertion of any new access on the first floor would prove difficult, given the much greater ceiling height in De Vere house and the consequent need to cut the roof-plate of no.60 and provide steps. A likely position for a new door on the ground floor lies immediately adjacent to the front entrance, where there is some evidence of an earlier door (notches for nailed jamb studs in the exposed mid-rail of no.60, and a break in the pegged mortises). The insertion of a door here would require the removal of only a single re-used stud (exposed in no.60, but concealed by plaster in De Vere House). The principal storey post of no. 60 lies hidden behind modern studwork three feet to the right of the adjacent post, ruling out the central area of the hall for this purpose. As this entire wall is conspicuous by its absence in photographs taken during the 1926 demolition process, there is no likelihood of damaging hidden wall paintings (S1).