26-50, CHAPEL STREET

A row of thirteen cottages on Chapel Street, built in the early 19th century, with two distinct phases of construction and subsequent alterations. The cottages are built of brown brick in an English garden wall bond (five bricks long with one brick as a header), some areas painted and others rendered, with sandstone dressings and a slate roof. They are double-depth cottages, all with a single frontage. A through-lobby connects numbers 32 and 34, and a waggon entry connects numbers 42 and 44. There are various back extensions.

The row is two storeys high, with fifteen windows in total (one window each, except for numbers 34 and 44, which have a second window above their entries). Cottages 26 to 32 have doorways with rounded heads, with fanlights featuring radiating glazing bars in all except number 32. The other doorways are square-headed, mostly in pairs, with wedge lintels. The through-lobby entry has a rounded arch, and the waggon entry has a basket arch with a keystone, recesses in the side walls for former double doors, and a cobbled floor. Above the waggon entry is a small gable containing a round-headed sash window with radiating glazing bars.

The facades of numbers 28 and 38 are painted, while those of numbers 32 to 36 and 40 to 46 are rendered or pebble-dashed. Original windows, with raised sills and wedge lintels (except where the lintels are obscured by render), include 16-pane sash windows at numbers 26 (ground floor only), 30, and 44. Numbers 38 and 42 have 4-pane sashes, while the glazing in the remaining windows has been altered.

The roof steps up between numbers 34 and 36, and again between numbers 42 and 44. Numbers 36 to 50 have moulded gutter cornices, and all the cottages have large lateral ridge chimney stacks. The row forms the largest part of a continuous group of similar cottages on the west side of Chapel Street.