| Description | 160 Westgate (Austin House), Wakefield. Former high status late 18th century house.
'Imposing late C18 house of 3 storeys and attic, nine windows. 5 bay centre projects under pediment. Eaves and pediment cornices are enriched with dentils and modillions. Plain round window in pediment. Red brick with hipped roof of modern tiles. Gauged flat brick arches, with fluted triple keystones, and stone cills to sash windows with glazing bars, shorter on 2nd floor. Centre windows in 2 storey round arched recess, that on 1st floor being Venetian using an enriched Ionic order. On ground floor at left a modern door, up four replaced steps, in doorcase of engaged fluted columns, enriched entablature and pediment. Rest of ground floor now a modern showroom. Carriage arch at right'.
(English Heritage listed building description. Date listed 14/07/1953. http://list.english heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1273225. Web site accessed 11/12/2013).
160 Westgate was the subject of an archaeological assessment in 1979 by Colum Giles as part of the WYAS/RCHME Rural Houses Survey. The photographic images and sketches produced by the assessment are held by WYAAS (Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1979). The fieldwork report is transcribed below:
'This is a large brick house of the late 18th century or early 19th century, built by John Lumb. It has been converted for showroom and office use, and has consequently been virtually entirely gutted, but the shell, together with one of Henry Clarke's sketches (c.1880s), allow a partial reconstruction of its unusual form.
The house faces south onto Westgate, which from an early 18th century date was becoming a street of wealthy residences. This is one of the largest, being nine bays and three storeys. The central five bays project to support a large pediment. Emphasis is given to the centre in other ways; a blank arch rises through the first and second floors in the central bay, with a Venetian window set into this at first floor level. Clarke's sketch shows that the ground floor maintained this stress, with a central carriageway leading through to the rear. The two windows to either side were set in blank arches, leaving the two 'wings' plainer. Clarke's sketch shows two doors on the south front, in the second and eighth bays; the western door has been removed to the end bay in the 20th century, while the eastern door has been removed entirely by the construction of a through way to the rear. Two doors were presumably necessary owing to the fact that the original central carriage way effectively divided the house into two halves. The surviving doorcase is possibly original: it has flanking fluted columns, a fluted architrave and a triangular pediment. Windows on this front are square headed with raised fluted keystones. There is a round window in the pediment.
The ground floor plan has been destroyed, but a few details can be recovered. The south front of the house must have had four rooms, two on either side of the carriageway, with front doors into the end rooms. A bracketed cornice survives at the east end defining a two bay heated room into which the door once opened. To the north of this was the main stair, which survives in a later form at first and second floor levels. It is lit by an original stair window. The rest of the ground floor is beyond recovery, and it is impossible even to guess whether the kitchen was originally in the main block or in one of the rear ranges. The two rear ranges run off to the north at a slight angle: there is no obvious break in the brickwork to show that these lower ranges are of a later date. A service stair seems to have been contrived half in the main block and half in the eastern of the two ranges.
The first and second floors are featureless. |