The Yorke Almshouses, Nos. 14–17 Church Row,

Forthampton Forthampton is a village in Gloucestershire, England The village is located three miles from the market town of Tewkesbury and features "a great number of interesting buildings", fine views, several duck ponds, a church, a collection of thatched ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England, are a range of four

almshouses An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

in 1865. The block is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

and the almshouses remain private residences.

History and description

Burges designed the almshouses in 1865. His patron was Joseph Yorke, of the family of local landowners. The family fortune had been established by

Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, (1 December 16906 March 1764) was an English lawyer and politician who served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. He was a close confidant of the Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister between 1754 and 1 ...

, a successful lawyer and politician. His son James Yorke (1730–1808) acquired the Forthampton Court estate in 1762, through his marriage to an heiress, Mary Maddox. James Yorke became successively

Bishop of St David's The Bishop of St Davids is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of St Davids. The succession of bishops stretches back to Saint David who in the 6th century established his seat in what is today the St Davids, city of ...

Bishop of Gloucester The Bishop of Gloucester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Gloucester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the County of Gloucestershire and part of the County of Worcestershire. The see's centre of governan ...

and

Bishop of Ely The Bishop of Ely is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire (with the exception of the Soke of Peterborough), together with a section of nort ...

. His grandson Joseph commissioned Burges to undertake a restoration of the Forthampton parish church, St Mary the Virgin, between 1863 and 1866, and the almshouses, which stand next to the church, were completed during this period. The restoration and construction work at Forthampton was conceived as a memorial to Joseph's daughter, Augusta Emmeline, who died in 1863, weeks after giving birth to an heir. Alan Brooks, in the revised 2002 ''Gloucestershire'' volume of

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, dan ...

's ''

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

'' series, describes the Yorke almshouses as "a thin row, with gables bearing the Yorke arms and their crest as

finials A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, tower ...

". They are built of

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

, to a symmetrical design, with a fish scale tiled roof. The complete block is designated a

Notes

References

* * {{William Burges William Burges buildings Grade II listed buildings in Gloucestershire Grade II listed houses