8 High Street
8 High Street
(North Side)
No 8 High Street was built around 1830, possibly as a town house or perhaps it has always been a shop, it has certainly been a shop premises with accommodation over at least from around the 1830s when a sketch, shown below, illustrated the building with bow shop windows either side of the entrance door. At this time it was the premises of Benjamin Ryall, a linen draper and also the last Portreeve of Yeovil, who occupied the building until his death in 1856.
From 1864 the premises were family-run jewellers' shops. Whitby's Yeovil Almanack Advertiser of 1898 listed it as the premises of jeweller Charles Fox and Whitby's 1903 and 1907 editions listed it as the premises of jewellers Munford & Son. From 1911 the premises were those of watchmaker and jeweller Clement White.
The following description is taken from the Somerset Historic Environment Record -
Shop, c1830:
ashlar stone
colour-washed,
the roof hidden
behind a
parapet. A
3-storey not
quite
symmetrical
facade of 3-bays
in Regency
style. Modern
shopfront to
ground floor,
with 6-panel
doors simply set
on either side,
the left-hand
being wider and
having a
margined
fanlight, the
right-hand door
having a plain
fanlight; the
facade above has
pilasters
framing the
3-window bays
and a further
blank 'bay' on
each side: the
centre at first
floor level has
a recessed blind
panel with
Soanian
architrave
flanked by
angled bay plain
sashes: a simple
band course
divides off the
second floor
windows, which
are plain sashes
set in panelled
architraves, and
the whole is
crowned by a
classical
cornice with low
parapet, raised
slightly over
central bay,
finishing with
cast iron
railings with an
intertwined
pattern. There
is a rendered
chimney stack to
the right.
gallery
This sketch, made by Madeley to illustrate his map of 1831, shows the Borough seen from High Street - roughly the view seen today from the north end of King George Street. The Shambles is to the left and the Market House is to the right. The buildings at far left still stand today, that to the left is Clement White's shop, today's 8 High Street, at this time occupied by Benjamin Ryall, a draper whose name appears above the door.
A hand-coloured and heavily touch-up photograph of High Street dating to 1907. No 8 High Street is at right. If you look closely you will see that most of the people, all of whom have no shadows, have been added to the photograph in the photographer's studio.
A hand-coloured postcard of High Street dating to about 1910, just before the Town Hall got its new clock tower. By this time No 8 had its own flag pole!
This colourised photograph of High Street dates to about 1914, by which time the Town Hall clock tower had been built. The building at the far end is Stuckey's Bank that predated the present bank building.
A A 1930s postcard (the Medical Hall is still there) looking across the Borough with No 8 High Street, at extreme left, occupied by Clement White.
King George Street in a photograph of around 1935. No 8 High Street is the white building (without its clock) directly ahead.
Photographed in the mid-1960s little has changed since except King George Street is now pedestrianised.... and Clement White's clock has stopped!
No 8 High Street as appears today (courtesy of Mr Google).
