Summary
House, late C18 with later shop front.
Reasons for Designation
13 Senhouse Street, Maryport is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* dating from the late C18, when there is a presumption in favour of listing buildings which retain a significant proportion of their historic fabric;
* it largely retains its original late-C18 domestic character including chamfered reveals to the upper windows.
Historic interest:
* as one of the key buildings on Shipping Brow that formed the earliest part of the mid-C18 planned town.
Group value:
* it benefits from a group value with several C18 and C19 domestic and commercial buildings, which together combine to impart the historic character of this part of Maryport.
History
Maryport is a mid-C18 Cumbrian town and port, succeeding a small settlement and harbour known as Ellenfoot (Alnfoot), established on a planned grid pattern by Humphrey Senhouse (1731-1814) to serve the local coal mining and iron industry, and function as a minor shipping point. The town officially became known as Maryport in 1756 after Humphrey Senhouse’s wife, although it had unofficially been referred to as such since the earlier 1750s. During the C19 the town and port expanded to serve the local iron and steel industries as the town’s shipbuilding industry developed, and by the mid-C19 coal exporting had declined and the railway was introduced. The port and town remained important on the west Cumberland coast but declined with the cessation of major industrial activity from the late 1920s. Maryport has been known as a destination for sea bathing since the late C18.
Senhouse Street, running from Curzon Street to the harbour, retains its historic layout of diverse and varied C18 and C19 buildings. Its north-west end is known as Shipping Brow and forms the earliest part of the mid-C18 grid pattern. It is labelled as the town’s earliest marketplace, known as Old Market Brow, on a map of around 1756, and as a consequence is wider than other streets in the town with continuous rows of houses north and south (now with a handful of buildings removed). By the early C19, it was no longer the official marketplace, but remained a prominent residential and commercial area, with those involved in the town’s principal industries residing there.
Details
House, late C18 with later shop front.
MATERIALS: stucco, etched to resemble stone blocks; stone slates to roof.
EXTERIOR: situated on the south side of Shipping Brow. It has two bays and three storeys beneath a pitched roof of stone slates, with bracketed eaves. The ground floor has a wide shop front with a timber cornice and a dentilled facia, and a shop window of six large panes. There are later double doors to the right below a rectangular fanlight. The first and second floors each have two windows in stone surrounds with chamfered reveals and one-over-one sliding sash windows with margin lights. The style of these chamfers, which are present on other buildings in this part of Senhouse Street, suggests a late C18 date. There is a single roof light.
