Queen's Aid House

History

In December 1583, a fire destroyed most of Nantwich to the east of the River Weaver. According to the contemporary account of Richard Wilbraham, 150 houses burned down, and the devastation was such that a national relief fund was organised to help pay for the town's rebuilding. The appeal was successful: "every person damaged in the loss of their houses have been holpen and relieved in some portion". Elizabeth I personally contributed – the only time that she is known to have done so – giving £1000 (around £200,000 today).

The Queen's Aid House was built as a merchant's house shortly after the fire by local craftsman Thomas Cleese. Cleese (also known as Clease or Clowes) appears to have been the town's master builder from around 1550 until after the fire. He is also known to have built Churche's Mansion, a grade-I-listed Elizabethan mansion at the end of Hospital Street, as well as the roofs to the north and south transepts of St Mary's Church. In the original layout, there would have been a shop on the ground floor facing the street, with a hall behind giving access to a buttery and kitchen.

The well-known Nonconformist preacher Matthew Henry died of apoplexy in the house on 22 June 1714, after visiting the town to preach at the Presbyterian Meeting House on Pepper Street. He was staying with the Reverend Joseph Mottershead, the minister of the Meeting House.

When local historian James Hall wrote in the 1880s, the Queen's Aid House had been a grocer's shop for at least a century, and had then been occupied by William Sandford since at least 1874. On 16 November 1882, it survived a fire that destroyed its neighbour, a draper's shop. In the 1910s and 1920s it was the Queen Bess Café, which appears in a Nantwich postcard, but by 1939 had returned to being a grocer's, the Star Tea Company. In the 1980s it sold confectionery and tobacco products.

Description

The Queen's Aid House is a tall black-and-white building of three storeys plus attics under a tiled roof, with a timber frame infilled with plaster. In common with most merchant's houses of this date in Nantwich, its single gable faces the street, with all the accommodation fitting into a single bay's width. The gable is topped with a finial.

There is ornamental panelling to all storeys except the ground floor, which has a modern shop front. Motifs include ogee lozenges, similar to the decoration of Churche's Mansion, as well as quatrefoils and herringbone patterns. The first storey is flanked by a pair of fluted pilasters, which are in early Renaissance style. None of the windows is original. The first storey has a canted oriel window dating from the 19th century; the second storey has two sash windows, and the attic storey has a single small window with a semicircular arched head. On the second storey, between the two windows, is a carved wooden plaque, which commemorates the aid given by the queen in rebuilding the town:

A second carved inscription, in two panels under the second-storey jetty, reads:

On the interior, the ground-floor room facing the street has beams with ovolo moulding.

References

Sources

• Bavington G et al. Nantwich, Worleston & Wybunbury: A Portrait in Old Picture Postcards (Brampton Publications; 1987) ()
• Garton E. Tudor Nantwich: A Study of Life in Nantwich in the Sixteenth Century (Cheshire County Council Libraries and Museums; 1983) ()
• Hall J. A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich, or Wich Malbank, in the County Palatine of Chester (2nd edn) (E. J. Morten; 1972) ()
• Lake J. The Great Fire of Nantwich (Shiva Publishing; 1983) ()
• Pevsner N, Hubbard E. The Buildings of England: Cheshire (Penguin Books; 1971) ()
• Simpson R. Crewe and Nantwich: A Pictorial History (Phillimore; 1991) ()

References

1. {{NHLE
2. Lake, pp. 30, 93–95, 104
3. Pevsner & Hubbard, pp. 287–89
4. Lake, pp. 67–68, 71, 76
5. Lake, p. 89
6. Lake, pp. 76, 82
7. Lake, pp. 98–99
8. Garton, pp. 23–24
9. Garton, p. 79
10. Lake, pp. 120–21
11. Hall, p. 386
12. Hall, pp. 108–9
13. ''Morris & Co's Directory'' (1874)
14. It remained a grocer's shop run by Wardle & Hughes and later Arthur Bentley until at least 1914.''Kelly's Directory'' (1892; 1914)
15. Bavington ''et al''., p. 14
16. Simpson, plate 34
17. ''Kelly's Directory'' (1939)
18. "Supernews list". Rippleglen Ltd.