About Our Home

We hope you will enjoy staying in this apartment. Here is some background historical information about the building.

This apartment is part of a building that has historical significance in Gloucester town centre. The building was built in 3 phases: the oldest part of the building (middle section – the bedroom) dates from 1540, the front section is dated at some time in the 17th century and the most modern section, the back section (the stairs) dates from around 1930. The footprint of the house dates from around 1000 years ago, meaning that there has been a house of some sort on this place since then.

We purchased the entire building in 2019 and it was in a very sorry state. With a lot of time and effort we have transformed 3 floors into 2 modern apartments.

Being of historical significance, and being given listed status (grade II), means that there are certain parts of the building that we had to keep and not change in any way:

• the sloping floor that runs up the hallway and in the bedroom – don’t worry, the bed has been especially adapted and is perfectly level.
• the original 16th century beams in the bedroom.
• the 16th century wall paintings at the end of the hallway that are protected by a Perspex covering. These were discovered during the renovation, much to the delight of Historic England (previously English Heritage), as they are a fine example of this type of wall painting that date from around 1570. They show a pattern of pomegranates and foliage in an ogival design.

We know very little about what this house has seen over the centuries, but we do know that for a while in the 17th/18th centuries, it was a cork manufacturer’s establishment making bottle stops, fishing floats etc. We know that the excess cork was burned to make black pigment as we found a lot of this under the floorboards.