Hugh Perry Almshouses, Wotton-under-Edge

The Hugh Perry Almshouses stand on Church Street in Wotton-under-Edge, between the High Street and St Mary's Church. The front range and chapel were built in 1638 from Hugh Perry's bequest, and more houses were added behind for Thomas Dawes's charity from 1723. They are listed Grade II and are still homes today.

History

The almshouses were paid for by a son of the town who made his fortune in London. Hugh Perry was a mercer and alderman of the City of London, a former Wottonian, and when he died in 1634 his will left £300 for an almshouse for six poor men and six poor women. He also left yearly sums for their clothing and fuel, and £8 for an usher who taught at the town's free school and read divine service in the chapel every day at 11 o'clock.

Perry's building

The oldest parts, fronting Church Street, and the chapel were built from his legacy in 1638. A memorial scroll over the entrance carries the town's old emblem, a woolsack, a reminder of the trade that made Wotton rich.

Thomas Dawes and the General Hospital

Thomas Dawes's property went to the poor of the town too. A Chancery decree of 1722 confirmed its sale, and the money paid for a site for a hospital for six poor people or families: six new houses behind the chapel, with six garden plots and the use of the chapel, under a lease of 19 June 1723. A General Hospital was built later, mainly from gifts out of Perry's estates, and it housed 30 almspeople and a matron. Historic England's listing dates part of the building to 1712, so some of the work behind the street front may be earlier than Dawes's lease.

Today

In the 1950s the quarters were reduced from thirty to twenty-two, and in the 1970s the buildings were modernised as nine flats, each with a sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, with a common room and laundry. The trustees of the Wotton-under-Edge General Charities run them, a secular body of eleven: four appointed by the town council and seven foundation trustees from the community.

What to look for

From Church Street you see two storeys of rubble stone under six Cotswold gables. Look for:

• the stone two-light windows with square hoods and leaded glass;
• the central doorway under a flat elliptical arch, with the inscribed panel and memorial scroll above it;
• the hexagonal wooden cupola over the main block;
• behind the front, the private courtyard with its three wings and the small chapel, listed in its own right, whose modern memorial windows honour Perry and Dawes.

Wotton has other almshouses too: the Bearpacker almshouses opposite the church, with a plaque of 1837, and the Rowland Hill almshouses of 1815 on Tabernacle Pitch.

Visiting

The almshouses are private homes, so please see them from the pavement of Church Street and do not go into the courtyard uninvited. The street is a short walk from the town's council car parks.

Getting there

Church Street runs from the High Street down to St Mary's in the lower town. Stroud District Council runs car parks at Potters Pond, at the bottom of the street, and The Chipping, and lists no charge for them; there are free public toilets on Ropewalk.

On foot, Wotton, the Tyndale Monument and Coombe Hill starts on Gloucester Street, about 350m away, and the Cotswold Way passes through the town centre.

Nearby

St Mary's Church is at the bottom of the street, with the Ancient Ram Inn beside it on Potters Pond. Above the town are Jubilee Clump on Wotton Hill and the Tyndale Monument. The Royal Oak on Haw Street serves food.