History:

• In 1837, both the Cumbergate and Westgate workhouses were converted into almshouses (charitable buildings to help the poor and the needy) by the Feoffees as they forced the Board of Guardians to build a new Workhouse on Thorpe Road instead of taking over the Westgate site.
• In 1903 the Almshouses were rebuilt on the site of the old House of Correction when a legacy was received from Miss Frances Pears daughter of a well-known draper in the city. After dying in 1901, she left them £5,000 for the purpose of rebuilding and the houses were named after her.
• During 1982–1996, the listed building housed Topo Gigio’s restaurant.
• In 1999, Yate’s Wine Lodge showed interest in the site but then moved to its current site on Broadway.
• In 1999, Peter Boizot opened the venue as a wine / champagne bar and closed it on February 2003.
• In 2005, August, the building became Harriets Tea Room.

Architecture:

The 2-storey ashlar building with paired diagonal set chimneys was rebuilt in the original Tudor style with Welsh slate roofs and enclosed a small garden in the front.

On the Cumbergate elevation there are 2 matching and projecting end blocks in stone with a centre section set back. The ends have a 4-centred doorway with rusticated surround and door. A stone string is between storeys.

The front facing windows have leaded lights and on the ground floor the central frames are brick, decorated by stone dressings. They are supported by stone capped plinths and protected by stone dripmoulds and hipped projected roofs.  The main door is plain door.

On the Exchange street elevation stands a 4 gables to ashlar building with finals.

Each gable has 1 x 3-light mullion window. On the ground floor there are 4 x 3-light oriel windows with stone roofs and ashlar rusticated stone dressing.

The roof was made higher in the rebuild. The projecting block at the northern end disappeared when Queensgate was built but the southern block is still there.

Miss Pears’ Almshouses were listed as a Grade II building in 1973 and all the buildings listed in Cumbergate form a group.

Social History :

• The Feoffees were a body established in the 16th Century with various public responsibilities. They ran an adjoining site until 1844 when a purpose built jail, now the Sessions House built in 1844.
• Frances Pears was born in Doncaster 1842.
• Her actual will was £5,000 for re-building the almshouses in Cumbergate, or building new ones on another site and £1,000 to the parishioners of St. John’s Vicar for the maintenance of a second curate. Her condition was that the Almshouses should be within the borough boundary and not at the suggested site of Walton.
• James Pears was born in Yorkshire 1809 and died in Peterborough, 21st May 1886.
• Harriets Tea House is a family run business. The original Harriets was launched in Bury St Edmunds where it proved a great success.