Bessie Surtees House And Milbank House

Bessie Surtees House and Milbank House are two houses that were later converted into shops and are now united. They date from the 16th and 17th centuries, with the left house being refronted around 1721 and alterations made around 1931 for Lord Gort. The buildings are timber-framed with painted render; the left house features bright red brick with painted ashlar dressings. The roof of the right house is covered with Welsh slate, while the left has pantiles and the rear is finished with French tiles.

The left house includes a 19th-century shop with a pedimented doorcase at the right end. Number 41 on the right has a central entrance with a ledged and battened door, along with wood-mullioned-and-transomed shop windows. The brick front features sash windows with glazing bars and flat brick arches, except for elliptical heads on the top floor, and has projecting stone sills. There are brick strings at the floor levels, with a moulded string at the second floor. The top parapet has been renewed with brick pilasters and stone coping.

The right house has full-width mullioned-and-transomed windows, featuring glazing bars and upper casements, in bays defined by fluted pilasters resting on long brackets. The fifth floor, a 19th-century alteration, has three large windows alternating with bays of vertical framing. All floors above the first are jettied on rendered beam ends. The steeply-pitched roof of No. 44 has a leaded casement in the left return gable and brick chimneys at the right end of the rear.

Inside, the rear wing of No. 44 has upper crucks, while the front range of No. 41 features a closed-string open-well staircase and much panelling, including Jacobean chimney pieces, one of which originated in Cosyn's House on the Quayside and was brought here from Eastfield Hall in Warkworth. The rear wing of No. 41 was rebuilt for Lord Gort, incorporating many genuine 17th-century features from other houses, and at this time, a Jacobean-style ceiling was added to the main house.

Historically, this house is famous as the place from which Bessie Surtees, a merchant's daughter, eloped with the future Lord Eldon, who became Chancellor of England. The building was being restored at the time of the survey, and Nos. 42 and 43 are incorporated into this house.