In many ways 32 Friarn Street encompasses the Story of Bridgwater, representing the many ages of change in the town’s long history. You will see at the bottom that it is built on Medieval stone foundations, above which is brick of the early eighteenth century with windows of the late eighteenth in later remodelling. This is a medium-sized house for the time, representing the prosperous but not richest members of the community.
The pointed street-front gable of 32 Friarn Street would have been relatively common on narrower buildings in Bridgwater in the medieval and early modern periods, giving way in the eighteenth century to the boxier style of buildings you can see either side.
The history of the house is well documented, and can be traced over many centuries. For most of its history it was the home of members of the town’s well-to-do middling sort.
It was occupied by Robert Gillo from 1861 to 1881, a photographer who made the earliest photographic images of Bridgwater and much of Somerset. More can be read about Gillo here.
Between 1884 and 1913 it was the home to the lantern slide manufacturing of York and Sons, producing some 100000 slides a year. More on them can be read about here.
From 1999 to 2015 it was lovingly repaired and restored by Dr Peter Cattermole.