Building recording at Franche House, Wolverley Road, Franche, Kidderminster

Building assessment and recording was undertaken at Franche House, Wolverley Road, Franche, Kidderminster in advance of proposed building works. The house is a very much altered farmhouse or gentleman's residence of the very late 18th or early 19th Century. The form of the original house is now very difficult to discern, but it was (according to cartographic sources) "L" shaped, with the larger part of the house at the west end and the present southern block forming the bottom leg . The building was cellared and had three storeys, the uppermost probably being partially within the roofspace. The house lost almost all of its original grounds in a series of housing developments from the 1950s onwards, and now stands surrounded by a suburban sprawl, that has a few character properties scattered amongst it as relics of the early-mid 19th C development of the area including some of the service buildings of the Franche Hall estate. Internally very little remains of the original house other than the cellarage, which has only suffered minor alterations. There is no evidence of any building earlier than the very late 18th-early 19th C house, and the original building has been altered beyond all recognition. There are no indications that the site has any archaeological potential, and the building is of no more than local architectural interest.