18-20, TOWNGATE

The property at 18-20 Towngate is a house, originally subdivided into cottages, now occupied as a single dwelling. It dates to the late 17th century, with alterations made subsequently. It is reputedly associated with the date 1693. The construction is of thin coursed dressed stone with a stone slate roof.

The house has two storeys with attics. The south front, facing two rooms, features two gables. An original entrance is located in a lean-to against the rear of the building, which is of a double pile design. This creates an unusual, irregular plan. The south front includes a doorway, set back from the front, with a heavy stone lintel, a square shape with a stop chamfer. Situated within the doorway is an original wooden door frame featuring a depressed Tudor arch and carved spandrels, with a studded oak door. Above the doorway is a chamfered cross-window with square reveals. A gable stack and coping are linked to a parapet on the return wall to the south front, and this parapet extends to connect the two gables. There are two bays of windows. An ovolo moulded drip course runs along the front, functioning as a cornice over the first-floor windows. The first bay contains a 19th-century doorway inserted in the location of a former fire window and a 2-light window above. All windows are double-chamfered mullioned, with some refaced in concrete around 1883. A 7-light window features a king mullion with a stepped light above of 3/5 lights. The second bay has a 19th-century cottage doorway adjacent to a 5-light window, with a matching stepped light above. The gables are coped and have lenticular apertures (open bullseyes), linked by a parapet. The roof runs parallel to the south front, with the two gables projecting.

The rear of the property comprises a double pile range with a two-span roof running at right angles to the front range. The rear face is rendered. It has two bays of gables. A crude drip course runs above the ground-floor windows; the first bay retains less elaborate double-framed windows with chamfered mullions and square reveals. The ground floor has six lights, with a matching window above, lacking three mullions.

Inside, the western room on the south front served as a housebody; fragments of a plaster frieze survive on the east and north walls. The internal division wall between the two bays is a plank and stud screen. Stop-chamfered spine beams are present in the parlour, originally heated by an extruded stack on the east wall. The division between the front and rear was originally a timber wall running east and west from a central post, which retains a doorway with a cambered head. The housebody chamber has mortises in the soffit of the tie beam (no truss is visible) for a firehood.