The buildings of Wycombe: 4 High Street (From Bucks Free Press)

The buildings of Wycombe: 4 High Street

8:20pm Saturday 10th December 2011

• Print
• Email
• Comments(5)

If a Victorian travelled through time and ended up in our High Street today they would no doubt recognise many of the buildings.

Despite the changes that ravaged Wycombe in the 1960's thankfully the High Street escaped mostly unscathed.

While the buildings may be the same structurally the course of time has seen many of their uses change.

Walk along the High Street today and at number four, on the eastern side of the old Wheatsheaf Inn, is a chemist (see picture).

Thirty years ago the building was the well known public house called “The Grapes”, however during the 1970's it changed its name for a short time to the “Coach and Horses” before reverting back to “The Grapes”.

Also incorporated in the building was Leadbetter's wine and spirits merchant.

At the end of this blog I have included a link to a picture on the marvellous SWOP (Sharing Wycombe's Old Photographs) site so you can see what The Grapes looked like in the early 1980's and in its “Coach and Horses” incarnation in the late 1970's.

With a public bar, off licence, restaurant and, so I am told, a discotheque located in the basement it was a most impressive establishment.

The off licence was located at the front of the building with public access through a small alley on the right of the premises (see picture at SWOP link below). Next door was of course the famous greengrocers shop of H. & J.W. Aldridge.

It's amazing how many public houses there have been in our High Street especially for a town with such a comparatively small population.

Travel further back in time to the early part of the twentieth Century and we find the same building was in fact a row of three houses.

So over the last hundred years this building has been a house, two pubs and now a chemist indeed this is a building that has adapted to changing trading uses over the hundred years or so that it has been in existence.

While the upper storey has remained exactly the same the frontage has been remodelled to suit each of the various purposes the building has been put to.

Does this not show the versatility of the architecture involved? At every reincarnation the skilful architectural changes to the lower storey have always blended in with the remainder of the building.

You only have to look at the structure to see what a spectacle it is with magnificent sash windows, first floor balcony, cornice mouldings and balustrade topping off the building.

Back in the 1950's Pevsner passed by without even a mention of this fine building and it isn't even afforded any kind of listing protection by English Heritage.

Nowadays the building is know as Vintner House (possibly after the wines and spirits merchant who, for some time, also occupied the premises) and the upper storeys have been converted to office space.

I wonder what changes the building will see over the next hundred years?

What do you think?

The Grapes (SWOP link): http://apps.buckscc.gov.uk/projects/swop/swop.asp?page=singleRecordFromSimpleSearch&mwsquery=({phrases}=~{grapes}) AND ({phrases}=~{wycombe})&swopItemStart=8&id=5547

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here