page_title: Queen's Aid House
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Queen's Aid House / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of the Queen's Aid House, Nantwich, Cheshire
context_page_description: The Queen's Aid House, or 41 High Street, is a timber-framed, black-and-white Elizabethan merchant's house in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. It is located on the High Street immediately off the town square and opposite the junction with Castle Street. It is listed at grade II. Built shortly after the fire of 1583 by Thomas Cleese, a local craftsman, it has three storeys with attics, and features ornamental panelling, overhangs or jetties at each storey, and a 19th-century oriel window. The building is best known for its contemporary inscription commemorating Elizabeth I's aid in rebuilding the town, which gives the building its name. It has been used as a café, as well as various types of shop.
  The High Street was the home of the wealthiest townspeople in the 1580s, and the houses dating from the rebuilding form the finest examples of post-fire architecture in the town. The modern High Street still contains many other good examples of Elizabethan timber-framed buildings, all of which date from after the fire; these include the grade-II*-listed number 46, which stands opposite the Queen's Aid House, and the grade-I-listed Crown Inn.
context_section_description: The Queen's Aid House is a tall black-and-white building of three storeys plus attics under a tiled roof, with a timber frame infilled with plaster. Each floor is jettied; the corbels supporting the overhangs are carved with faces and other motifs. In common with most merchant's houses of this date in Nantwich, its single gable faces the street, with all the accommodation fitting into a single bay's width. The gable is topped with a finial.
  There is ornamental panelling to all storeys except the ground floor, which has a modern shop front. Motifs include ogee lozenges, similar to the decoration of Churche's Mansion, as well as quatrefoils and herringbone patterns. The first storey is flanked by a pair of fluted pilasters, which are in early Renaissance style. None of the windows is original. The first storey has a canted oriel window dating from the 19th century; the second storey has two sash windows, and the attic storey has a single small window with a semicircular arched head. On the second storey, between the two windows, is a carved wooden plaque, which commemorates the aid given by the queen in rebuilding the town:
  God Grante Our R[o]yal Queen
  In England Longe To Raign
  For She Hath Put Her Helping
  Hand To Bild This Towne Again
  A second carved inscription, in two panels under the second-storey jetty, reads:
  Thomas Cleese Made This Worke
  The Yeare of Our Lorde God. 1584
  On the interior, the ground-floor room facing the street has beams with ovolo moulding.
caption: Detail showing upper storeys
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