The Crescent, Taunton
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The Crescent is a street in
Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...
, a town in the English county of
Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...
. Construction began in 1807, during a period of extensive redevelopment in the town, driven by the Market House Society and the Member of Parliament Sir Benjamin Hammet. Lined on the eastern side by a Georgian terrace, the street follows a shallow crescent shape, broken in the middle by Crescent Way and a bit further south by St George's Place. It links Upper High Street, at its southern end, with Park Street and Tower Street to the north. On the western side, Somerset County Council have their offices in the County Hall, erected in 1935, and extended in the 1960s. The Georgian terrace, the
Masonic Hall A Masonic Temple or Masonic Hall is, within Freemasonry, the room or edifice where a Masonic Lodge meets. Masonic Temple may also refer to an abstract spiritual goal and the conceptual ritualistic space of a meeting. Development and history I ...
, and the County Hall are recorded in the
National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...
as
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
s.


History

During the 17th and 18th centuries Taunton suffered, first due to the
Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
(1642–1651), during which two thirds of the town was burnt down, and then the decline of the cloth industry upon which the town's economy relied. In the late 18th century, the Taunton Market House Society formed with the aim of improving Taunton town centre, most notably the Market House. Benjamin Hammet, a prominent member of the society, was elected as a Member of Parliament for
Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...
in 1782, and tried to start clearing the slums in the town centre. In 1770, the old Market House was knocked down and replaced, and less than ten years later, Hammet Street was built, to connect the Market square with the Church of St Mary Magdalene. The Crescent formed part of Hammet's plan for Taunton. It was built to the north of Upper High Street, in what was known at the time as Paul's Field. It follows a shallow
crescent A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase (as it appears in the northern hemisphere) in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hindu iconography, Hind ...
shape, which
Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...
notes is "hardly noticeable". Although Hammet died in 1800, the foundation stone was placed in 1807 by William Kinglake, as part of a ceremony that was attended by "an immense number of persons." The ''
Monthly Magazine ''The Monthly Magazine'' (1796–1843) of London began publication in February 1796 as ''The Monthly Magazine and British Register''. From 1826 through 1835 it used the title ''The Monthly Magazine, or British Register of Literature, Sciences, a ...
'' noted that the street was intended to add to the "ornament, respectability, and advantage" of Taunton, while the ''Taunton Courier'' reported that the houses were intended for "genteel families". When the street was built, each end featured a cottage with high iron gates which limited traffic to residents and their visitors. The footpaths were less restricted, but featured "three or four posts between which a corpulent person had difficulty in squeezing." These gates and posts have since been removed. The Crescent comprised a terrace of houses along the street's eastern side; the other side was not built on and was eventually converted into parkland. In 1822, a Catholic chapel, known as
St George's Chapel St George's Chapel, formally titled The King's Free Chapel of the College of St George, Windsor Castle, at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a Royal Peculiar (a church und ...
was built at the southern-end of the terrace, the first Catholic church built in Taunton since the
Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
. The Catholic congregation moved out to a larger church in 1878 and the chapel was bought by the
Freemasons Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
, who converted it into a
Masonic Lodge A Masonic lodge (also called Freemasons' lodge, or private lodge or constituent lodge) is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also a commonly used term for a building where Freemasons meet and hold their meetings. Every new l ...
. In 1935, County Hall was built on the open side of The Crescent, providing Somerset County Council with more space than their previous offices at Shire Hall. Early plans for further buildings at the site did not come to fruition, but County Hall was extended in the 1960s to cover most of the open land in front of The Crescent. Despite the work done by Hammet, the area between The Crescent and the High Street was still considered a slum until it was redeveloped around the Second World War. During this period, the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...
(GPO) built "Telephone House", a
telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a central component of a telecommunications system in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It facilitates the establishment of communication circuits ...
and office building, replacing the houses in the middle of the terrace.


Architecture

On the eastern side of The Crescent, a Georgian terrace was erected in 1807. Built of "pinkish-brown" brick, each house is of three-storeys plus a basement, and is two windows across. The houses are split by plain
pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...
s and topped with hipped slate roofs. While the first and second storey windows are rectangular, those on the ground floor are round-headed, as are the doorways. The first floor windows have small,
circular segment In geometry, a circular segment or disk segment (symbol: ) is a region of a disk which is "cut off" from the rest of the disk by a straight line. The complete line is known as a '' secant'', and the section inside the disk as a '' chord''. More ...
al balconies. A variety of six- and eight-panel doors are reached by climbing a small flight of steps, and the entire terrace is fronted with railings. This terrace forms two separate
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
designations from
Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...
; numbers 1–11 and 15–20, both of which are Grade II* listed. The terrace is intersected by Crescent Way, which leads to the Crescent car park. On the southern side of Crescent Way, the northern end of the terrace formed by numbers 15–20, is Exchange House, the former GPO Telephone House, which was built in place of original numbers 12–14. According to Pevsner, this building breaks the modesty of the street, with "its thick-set Tuscan porch". At the southern end of the same terrace is the
Masonic Hall A Masonic Temple or Masonic Hall is, within Freemasonry, the room or edifice where a Masonic Lodge meets. Masonic Temple may also refer to an abstract spiritual goal and the conceptual ritualistic space of a meeting. Development and history I ...
, another Grade II* listed building, which forms the end of the terrace, and features a series of prominent Ionic
pilasters In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...
along the front and southern end. A further terrace to the south of the Masonic Hall is split from the hall by St George's Place. It is formed of numbers 21 to 23 The Crescent, and number 42 Upper High Street. The terrace forms two listed building designations, both Grade II. Numbers 21 and 22 The Crescent are two-storey
roughcast Roughcast and pebbledash are durable coarse plaster surfaces used on outside walls. They consists of lime and sometimes cement mixed with sand, small gravel and often pebbles or shells. The materials are mixed into a slurry and are then throw ...
houses, each spanning three windows. The doorways are round-headed, and are flanked by ground floor bay windows. Number 23 forms the back of 42 Upper High Street, and is a two-storey red brick building. On the western side, the first part of the County Hall was built in 1935, and is known as "A Block". It was designed by
Vincent Harris Emanuel Vincent Harris (26 June 1876 – 1 August 1971), often known as E. Vincent Harris, was an English architect who designed several important public buildings in traditional styles. Early life He was born in Devonport, Devon, Devon ...
, and is Neo-Georgian. It is a three-storey, built out of red and buff-coloured bricks forming an English bond, with Portland stone dressings. The central section is curved, with wings at 45 degrees to the formed main entrance. The ground-floor is fronted with
ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...
, and has three round arches, the middle one of which forms a doorway. The doorway is topped by an engraved coat of arms in the tympanum. The central block spans nine windows, while each wing has a prominent window at the end, framed by an
aedicule In ancient Roman religion, an ''aedicula'' (: ''aediculae'') is a small shrine, and in classical architecture refers to a niche covered by a pediment or entablature supported by a pair of columns and typically framing a statue,"aedicula, n." ''O ...
. The first and second floors of the wings feature eleven
sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...
s. An extension was made to the south of the building in the 1960s. The original "A Block" is designated as a Grade II listed building.


See also

* Grade II* listed buildings in Taunton Deane


Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crescent, Taunton Grade II* listed buildings in Taunton Deane Grade II listed buildings in Taunton Deane Streets in Somerset Taunton Crescents (architecture) Grade II* listed houses Houses in Somerset