Historic Building Survey of Building recording (Level 3) and monitoring at Nos 58a and 58b High Street, Evesham, Worcestershire

Prior to fieldwork, a search of historic assets within 250m of the site was provided by Worcestershire Historic Environment Record. Primary sources were consulted at Worcestershire Archive and online sources including TheGenealogist.com were also accessed. The building survey was undertaken by Tom Rogers of Ambrey Archaeology in January 2025. Only the first floor of the building is the subject of the application. Access to this level was good, all spaces being accessible. The attic was also entered to inspect the roof structure although access here was limited. Recording was undertaken using pro-forma recording sheets and photographs were taken with a Nikon D3200 SLR camera and a DJI Osmo mobile 6 camera. Multiple images of the wall painting were combined into a Orthomosaic using Agisoft Metashape Standard. The building likely originated as a single house of four bays or two cottages each of two bays, built on burgage plots extending eastward from the street frontage. It was a box frame construction strengthened with knee braces supporting tie beams and windbraces in the roof structure. It was probably built in the in the first half of the 16th century. The building is unlikely to have been the first construction on this plot or plots as the burgages here were established in the 13th century. It is therefore likely that a previous, probably more rudimentary, structure stood in this location. The replacement house would have been modern in layout for the period, with smaller private chambers replacing the open plan layout of medieval houses and the commission of a wall painting would have also reflected this transition. It was probably soon after construction that the painting was commissioned for the first floor chamber of the building, depicting a man and woman, almost certain to have been a couple resident in their relatively newly built house. The painting is simple and largely monochrome with some colour applied in places, such as decorative bosses which are red and the column bases and capitals which are yellow.