NHER 26089 (Building record) - No 18 Colegate

No 18 Colegate.

February 1954. Listed, Grade II*.
Listing Description:
Former house, now offices. Early 18th century. Red brick with stucco rusticated quoins and string course. Flint to part of west wall. Pantile roof. Two storeys plus half-basement and attics. Seven bays. Central doorcase with moulded semi-circular head, two fluted composite half columns, pediment and keystone in the form of a tern. Five steps up.
Sash windows throughout with glazing bars and rubbed brick flat arches with keystone. Two small 17th century windows at first floor west wall. Ornate eaves cornice with modillions. Central dormer gable with two sash windows and small flanking dormers. Unusual roof arrangement with one ridge parallel to the street line and three ridges at right-angles at rear.
Interior: good 18th century detail including southwest room which has a fine plaster ceiling with a central oval panel within a guilloche frame with a wide enclosing frame with corner rosettes.
Information from (S1).
P. Watkins (HES), 20 September 2018.

1970s or 1980s. Building Survey.
Examined as part of Norwich Survey.
Rectangular structure in double depth with brick façade to the street in two heights and seven bays. Central front door with elaborate pedimented wooden doorcase. The south elevation is similar in general character to the street front and has a central doorway surmounted by a shield of arms. The principal feature of the interior is a large room in the south-west corner of the ground floor with a rococo plaster ceiling. This ceiling has an oval panel in guilloche frame with wide enclosing borders. There is also a re-set 18th-century stair with corkscrew balisters.
Small windows of mid to late 17th-century character in the west elevation and ceiling beams in the cellar with notched stops suggest an earlier structure but no features predating 1650 were observed.
See record forms (S2) for further details, basic ground floor plan, drawings of architectural details and copies of photographs.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 September 2018.

A short report produced by R. Smith in 1983 (S3) describes 18 Colegate as a large brick town house probably built in the second quarter of the 18th century. It is again noted that the small windows at first floor height in the west wall and the cellar ceiling beams date appear to date to the 17th century, although these are the only traces of any building predating the 18th-century reworking of the block. Central to the street elevation is what was described in (S4) as a "…most elaborate doorway" that leads to a square entrance chamber. This room has seen considerable rearrangement and it is suggested that the stair with corkscrew balisters has been "…if not imported, re-sited with new handrail and newel-post". This reorganisation may have taken place in the 19th century. The 1885 Orndance Survey 1:500 map shows a large garden behind the house with two glass structures against the rear façade.
The rear elevation is similar to that of the front, the most notable difference being that the roof has turned through 90 degrees to form three pointed gables - a potentially unique feature.
It is argued that despite that successive reorganising of the building and the loss of some features that those that remained at this time were of a high standard and compared favourably with the stock of 18th-century buildings in Norwich.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 September 2018.

Also noted in (S5).