Bayles House, to rear of 44-45 High Street

Bayles House, to the rear of 44-45 High Street

House and offices, early to mid-18th century, with mid- and late-19th century or early-20th century alterations.

The building is constructed of narrow, hand-made brick with slate roofs and forms an L-shaped plan of two storeys with an attic and a small basement beneath the main stair hall and service stair. The front range runs north-south, set back and parallel to High Street, while a long, narrower rear range extends east-west towards the River Hull, with a narrow rear yard.

The front elevation has five first-floor bays. Four bays contain flat-headed windows with gauged brick lintels topped with ashlar giant keystones and moulded ashlar sills, now painted white. The window frames are six-over-six pane unhorned sashes. The central bay features a later canted oriel window with slim timber frame and timber sill. Above the windows is a timber eaves board and gutter. The ground floor has a central doorway with a gauged brick lintel and giant ashlar keystone. The reeded and moulded ashlar doorcase bears rosettes to the upper corners and contains a flattened, cast-iron, cobweb fanlight with wreathed rosettes to the spandrels, all painted white. The original door has been replaced by a smaller 20th-century half-glazed door with shallow plain overlight. To the left is a large canted bay window of lighter orange, machine-made brick with a pitched roof. It has three six-over-six pane unhorned sashes.

The side elevations are blind. The rear elevation is rendered on the left-hand side with a first-floor round-headed window. A full-height stair hall projects from the centre and right-hand side, built of hand-made brick with a hipped slate roof. At ground-floor level a doorway in the east elevation aligns with the front doorway and has a rebuilt, machine-made brick surround. There is a horizontal three-over-three pane unhorned sash window beneath the eaves at attic level. The south elevation of the stair hall has a large Venetian stair window at first-floor level.

The long south elevation of the rear range has two flattened arch window openings, now blocked, at ground-floor level at the left-hand end. The ground floor contains a single window at the left end, three windows to the centre, and at the right end a window formerly serving as a doorway in 1952 but perhaps originally a window, with a blocked window obscured by a later structure. The windows have segmental brick lintels and six-over-six pane unhorned sashes. The first floor has six similarly spaced six-over-six pane windows with brick segmental lintels. The second floor has shorter windows beneath the eaves: a single window at the left end, three central windows, and a wider window at the right end with an unhorned sash frame of four horizontal panes-over-four horizontal panes. The other second-floor windows have three horizontal pane-over-three horizontal pane unhorned sashes.

The east gable wall has a blocked doorway at ground-floor level and a blocked doorway at first-floor level, formerly opening into a demolished warehouse. The rear yard is enclosed by tall orange brick, rendered walls with a doorway in the east boundary wall.

Internally, the rear stair hall contains a timber open-well staircase rising to the first floor. The lower flight rests on a curved supporting wall and the upper flight is cantilevered. The open-string stair has panelled soffits and turned, tapered column balusters with a swept, moulded handrail and curtail step. A Vitruvian scroll wall band appears at landing height, and the stairwell has moulded plaster wall panels with ears and shouldered architraves. A moulded cornice leads to a coved ceiling with a central roundel and flanking rectangles with foliage scrolls. The landing is lit by a Venetian window, the central light rising into the coved ceiling. Adjacent to the stair hall, at the west end of the rear range, a narrow stairwell contains a service stair. The timber dogleg staircase descends to the basement and rises to the attic, with closed-string construction, turned vase balusters, a ramped moulded handrail, and square newel posts.

The building retains moulded cornices and timber mantelpieces in numerous rooms in both front and rear ranges. The north ground-floor room in the front range has a 19th-century marble mantelpiece with decorative cast-iron surround. The attic rooms have the remains of small fireplaces. The two first-floor rooms in the front range are largely lined with reused 17th-century panelling and moulded cornices. The attic rooms to the front range are divided by timber partitions, some made of reused panelling. The room with the marble mantelpiece contains the remains of an inserted timber spiral staircase, now floored over at first-floor level, with a turned newel post and plain stick balusters. The large first-floor room in the rear range has a 19th-century cast-iron safe beside the chimney breast.