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St Margaret’s House
Timbrell’s Yard public house & hotel (formerly the Riverside), St Margaret’s Street
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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St Margaret’s House is a building behind the western side of St Margaret’s Street with a frontage on to the River Avon. The oldest part of the building seems to be of the first decade of the 18th century, but still hanging on to the gables and crossed mullion-and-transom windows of the previous century. The porch with its tuscan columns may have been added later. Because of the closeness to buildings on the street behind, the façade has the disadvantage of facing north. A building with a Venetian window on the ground floor and half-hipped roof is at right angles and the two have been linked at a later date. It had been part of the property of the powerful Hungerford family, but in 1715/16 Quaker banker Manasseh Whitehead sold it to Edward Thresher, who may have been responsible for the present building. Later, it became associated with the wool dyeworks next door (now St Margaret’s Hall) and the families of Timbrell, Spackman and Moore who operated it.
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St Margaret’s House seen from Holy Trinity churchyard in the late 19th century. The view makes the garden look bigger than it was because the hedge is actually that of the churchyard and the river is between that and the house. Two women and a man are standing on the lawn and another man is in the doorway; these are likely to have been members of the Moore family, perhaps including William.
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The house went on to be the Conservative Club, including the town’s public library, then the Rowing Club and the Riverside Inn, which closed in 2013. It was purchased by the Draco Pub Company and became their third “coaching inn” (it never was!) in March 2015, under the name Timbrell’s Yard, which it has taken from the Museum’s painting.