Number 17 Street Number 21 Row Leche House

A substantial undercroft and town house of the Leche family, now divided between undercroft shop and retail spaces at Row level and above. The building dates from multiple periods: the undercroft and lower part of the chimney are late 14th century; the rear extension features oak timber framing and roof trusses of late 15th-century date; a front chamber extension over the Row, rear extension and internal improvements date to the 17th century; minor 18th-century alterations were made subsequently. The building is constructed of sandstone and brick at street level, with timber frame and plaster panels above, and is roofed in grey slate.

Exterior

The building presents three full storeys including street level and Row, plus an attic inserted in the front gable. At street level, boarded double doors stand to the left, with a modern shopfront and pier to the right. The present street front projects beyond an early 17th-century encroachment visible from Row level upward. Three posts—formerly four, with that to the left rebuilt in stone and brick—formerly rose from street level and carry carved console brackets to a jettied bressumer and frieze with dentils and a running pattern in relief of grapes and vine leaves. The Row-level front rail comprises column-on-vase wooden balusters. A shopfront in earlier 20th-century manner has been inserted into an early 19th-century surround with reeded pilasters; a door of three vertical panels to the right provides access to a passage to the rear and to Number 23 Row (Lion House).

The small-framed third storey has corner posts carved with figures and decorative patterns. Three flush sashes with thick glazing bars have the date 1736 scratched on the glass. The jetty beam above the sashes is surmounted by a row of eight panels with shaped saltire braces. The gable features a slightly jettied tie-beam, small framing with curved braces and some pargeting, a mullioned and transomed attic window with leaded glazing (inserted in the later 17th century), cusped and ornately carved bargeboards, and a shaped bargepost.

The rear elevation has its timber frame largely concealed by plaster. Each of the two storeys of the main gable-end contains an irregular five-light mullioned and transomed window; the upper window has leaded glazing. A small rear courtyard is flanked to the east by a narrow wing which contained a passage linking the house to Number 23 Row (Lion House), which stands on the probable site of the former kitchen of Leche House. A narrow room called the "Lady's Bower" over a covered way with a column of Ionic derivation and a replaced corner post flanks the west side of the courtyard; the Bower has leaded mullioned windows.

Interior

The late 14th-century undercroft measures 14.6 metres by 5.8 metres and has ashlar sandstone walls; the east wall steps forward to carry the chimney stack above. The deeply moulded bressumer, positioned 1.4 metres behind the present shopfront, retains mortices for the posts of the former close-studded front. Massive braced beams on stone corbels carry a ceiling divided into five equal bays; the two rearmost bays are partly hidden by a brick barrel-vault, probably inserted in the 18th century, over the late 15th-century rearward extension. The undercroft now links to those of Numbers 15, 21 and 25 Street.

The former town house at Row level and above, now wholly used as a shop, is arranged from front to back as follows: a small former shop with a chamber above; a former shop and Row; an open two-bay hall two storeys high set at right angles to the Row, with a gallery above the passage along its west side; a bay for the former screens passage and stair; a parlour with a substantial chamber above facing the small rear courtyard, flanked on the west by the Lady's Bower over a covered way and on the east by a closet over the former passage to Number 23 Row (Lion House).

The front chamber, heightened and extended forward in the 17th century and ceiled with an attic floor around 1730, retains a raised plaster strapwork frieze visible at the north-east corner. The hall contains a late 14th-century chimney-breast on its east wall with an early 17th-century overmantel having three panels divided by half-columns of Ionic derivation, surmounted by the coat of arms of Sir John Leche. A partly plastered false hammer-beam central truss supports a substantial 17th-century chandelier pendant; the other trusses are of king-post construction. The timber-framed gallery with shaped splat balusters provides access to the front and rear chambers; access to the former screens passage bay is from the through-passage beneath the gallery. Some oak small-panelling survives. The stair to the gallery and rear chamber was replaced and repositioned behind the screens bay, probably in the 18th century.

The rear chamber above the parlour contains 17th-century plasterwork in truss panels: the north truss displays two winged horses with a Maltese cross in a shield within a pattern of fruit and foliage; the south truss features a pattern with human heads, crowns and roses. The closet above the Lion House passage has a panel above its north doorway with a lion rampant on a shield flanked by damaged fleur-de-lys; at the south end are Prince of Wales feathers in the Garter, flanked by fleur-de-lys.