Building record 1532000000 - 18-19 Castle Street

18 & 19 Castle Steet erected by the Ewelme Almshouses Trust in the 19th century and forms part of a group of cottages built by the Trust in Castle Street and Scot's Close. Other groupings of similar buildings are evident around the village including a group of four pairs on Church Street which are listed at grade II and a further group in Clements Lane. The Marsh Gibbon Conservation Area appraisal outlines the importance of these Ewelme cottages as significant to the history, links and development of the village: ‘Historically, the village is connected with Ewelme in Oxfordshire, the manor being part of an endowment of the hospital at Ewelme. The stone cottages erected by the Ewelme Almhouses Trustees in the late 19th century are to be found throughout the village and are notable in that they are examples of the rural housing movement led by Sir Henry W. Acland, a trustee of the Ewelme Estate.’
The cottages typically have steep gables, plain clay tiled roofs and stone mullions and quoins and detailing ,stone sills, lintels and band coursing. Remaining pairs of Almshouses retain much of the original design detailing and symmetry despite subsequent alterations. Significant due to historic interest, aesthetic interest, group value, social and communal value. Also significant and positively contribute to the character of the Conservation Area due to prominence and integrity within the village scene (B1).
The 28 stone-faced residential terrace properties owned by the Ewelme Trust in Marsh Gibbon were built for village families under the direction of Sir Henry Acland, who, as Regius Professor of Medicine in Oxford was the ex-officio Master of the Charity between 1858 and 1894. Sir Henry was particularly involved in public health issues and had been appalled at the dreadful living conditions of many villagers in the mid-19th Century (B2).