Greyfriars
“‘I like everything old fashioned,’ said Eleanor; ‘old fashioned things are so much the honestest,’” Anthony Trollope scribes in his 1857 classic Barchester Towers. And there’s nothing so old fashioned – in a good way – than a cathedral close, something he captured in words better than anyone else in his series of six novels about the fictional cathedral town of Barchester.
The first issue of Country Homes and Interiors magazine was hot off the printers in April 1986. The August edition of that year featured an article by Moira Rutherford called Close Encounters about clergy living in cathedral quarters. Archdeacon Michael Perry who lived in Durham Cathedral Close summed it up: “Someone once said clergy consists of middle class people living in upper class houses on lower class incomes. That’s certainly true here. All the canons have at least two jobs.”
Dean Richard Eyre who lived in Exeter Cathedral Close said, “It’s not difficult to heat a big old house like this; it’s simply difficult to pay for it. The guest room alone measures 30 feet by 18. It’s lucky the house only has three bedrooms not including attic rooms.” The immediate area around Leicester Cathedral has the appearance of a close (lots of substantial period houses) but is actually a legal quarter known as Greyfriars. Handsome Georgian terraces line several streets including Friar Lane and New Street; the latter heading northwards frames a view of the cathedral.
One of the best Georgian houses in Greyfriars is 17 Friar Lane. It’s one of 30 buildings which have received restoration funding from the Greyfriars Townscape Heritage Initiative. This was a restoration programme set up by Leicester City Council and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. In 2016 the sash windows and ornate timber Doric entrance doorcase were restored with a £50,000 grant.
Built in 1750 for banker William Bentley, 17 Friar Lane has a sophisticated three storey façade vertically divided into three by quoin pilasters. The central portion of the symmetrical brick elevation is particularly well handled with a Palladian window over the entrance door and a Diocletian window on the top floor. A pediment over the cornice completes the geometric arrangement. Whoever the architect was had a strong grasp of ornament and proportion.
The half timbered wholly jettied 14th century Guildhall on St Martin’s West next to Leicester Cathedral is a rare survivor predating the Georgian redevelopment of the area. Old fashioned indeed.
