The day Queen Elizabeth House moved 10 yards along the road

At the side the huge doors of the press room opened on to Trinity Passage, where on Saturday evenings considerable crowds would gather eager to grab a copy of the Green ‘Un sports edition, which carried all the afternoon’s results, in particular the racing results. Opposite the front entrance, which opened on to the main street, was a rather more cerebral sight.

Worcester Evening News building in Trinity Street before the company merged with the Daily Times in the mid-1930s  to become the Worcester Evening News and Times, a title still remembered by some

For staring you right in the eye as you left reception, past the two ladies manning the plug-in switchboard, a few random chairs and the desk where advertisements were taken, was one of Worcester’s most historic buildings. And it’s still there, even though the newspaper is not.

Queen Elizabeth House is a 16th-century half timbered property, not very large, but with a decent claim to fame.

It is named after Queen Elizabeth I, who is supposed to have watched a passing pageant and addressed the hoi polloi from its little gallery overlooking the roadway, when she visited Worcester in 1575.

Some spoilsport historians have poured cold water on this rather romantic image, insisting it is more likely QE House is so-called because it is the only survivor of the old Trinity Almshouses, which were refounded by the Queen in the early years of her reign.

Whatever the truth, the fact remains the gallery had a function unconnected to any potential speechmaking, for it was the access to two small rooms which would have provided accommodation for deserving almspeople.

The property in 1910 with the Queen’s portrait  on the front wreathed in evergreens

Until 1877 a portrait of the Queen painted on an oak panel hung outside the gallery. But then it went missing and remained so for 30 years until being recovered and put back in 1908. Where it had been is not recorded. On the eve of Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost (this year May 30), the portrait used to be wreathed in evergreens, with gilded laurel leaves prominent, and in the arches of the gallery a large golden ball was inserted.

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However, Queen Elizabeth House has another and more provable claim to fame, for in the late 1800s it was the subject of a considerable engineering project when it was moved, hook, line and kitchen sink, 10 yards down the road.

Nearby St Swithin’s Street was being widened and Trinity Passage improved and the old house was in the way. At first demolition was proposed, but there was an outcry and in 1891 public spirited citizens found the money to carry out the ultimate relocation. Worcester firm Bromage and Evans used screw jacks to lift the 200-ton building and then it was eased inch by inch 30ft along a greased metal railway line. Which would be some feat even today.

The huge printing presses in the paper’s Trinity Street building, which had doors opening on to Trinity Passage

And so half a century later, News and Times reporters leaving their office bleary eyed in the early hours, having imbibed a little too freely in the Royal Exchange after a marathon session of the city council, would come face to face with the balcony and the ghost of the Virgin Queen screeching her famous phrase: “A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.” Pause for thought.