16 Old Market Place

16 Old Market Place is a three-storey house of early 19th-century date, extended in the mid-19th century and converted to offices in the mid-20th century. The building comprises a two-room-deep front range oriented north to south with a rectangular footprint, and a long linear rear wing on a west-east alignment, with a courtyard to the north.

The front elevation is rendered with painted-plaster quoins, window and door surrounds, and a low parapet behind which sits a half-hipped roof. The building is two bays wide. The main entrance is in the left bay, accessed via curved steps bounded by a cast-iron railing. The doorway is flanked by a pair of fluted Doric columns supporting an entablature and fanlight with radial bars above, within which stands a four-panelled door. The ground and first floors each have a pair of two-light box sashes without glazing bars; the ground-floor windows are displaced to the right by the entrance. The second floor has single-pane windows. The rear gable-end elevation features a tall, round-arched, eight-pane timber-casement stair window at its centre, with three-light 20th-century timber-casement windows to the right on each floor. A projecting second-floor fire exit obscures part of the left side.

The two-storey rear wing is built of exposed brick. It consists of a flat-roof section, a slate pitched roof (partly re-covered with modern slate), and another flat-roofed L-shaped section. The north elevation faces the courtyard and includes, at the west end, a first-floor timber-framed jettied canted-bay window abutting the stair window; the wall below appears to have been rebuilt and contains three 20th-century single-light windows. The rest of the north elevation sits slightly forward and features a later jettied first-floor canted-bay window to the east, a ground-floor box bay window (appearing to be 20th-century), and a 19th-century segmental-head horizontal sash window. The remaining windows on this elevation and those on the south and east elevations are 20th-century timber and uPVC frames. The brick walls show evidence of various phases of repair and rebuilding, with blocked doors and alterations around many windows. 20th-century doors are located on the south and east elevations.

Internally, the front range's entrance opens into a small lobby with a 20th-century glazed timber-framed internal door and false match-board ceiling. A 19th-century dog-leg staircase with a timber balustrade of turned spindles and squared and turned newel posts stands against the east wall. A two-cell brick-arched basement, accessed by internal stair, contains a coal bin, coal shoot and benches. The ground floor has been substantially reconfigured for office rooms and toilet facilities. The upper floors retain their original U-shaped room arrangement around the stairwell, though some partitions have been inserted to create smaller rooms. The first floor retains 19th-century plaster cornices and some in-built cupboards with bevelled-panelled doors and butterfly hinges. The long first-floor front room retains plastered ceiling beams and timber panelling to the window reveals. A double-purlin timber roof covers the structure.

The rear wing was reconfigured in the 20th and 21st centuries for office space, including the creation of a corridor along its south side lit by internal glazing. A 19th-century cornice survives in the westernmost first-floor canted-bay room. A 20th-century staircase is located at the east end. The roofs are slate-clad with a main rendered central stack and a brick stack over the wing.