55, 57 AND 59, HIGH STREET

Three houses with shops at 55, 57 and 59 High Street, Bromyard, originally forming a single 15th-century hall house. The building has been substantially altered and extended from the early 19th century onwards.

The structure comprises three ground-floor shops fronting High Street with a return elevation to Cruxwell Street. It is constructed of whitewashed brick with a slate roof and brick end stacks. The High Street frontage displays a range of five windows with 12-pane sashes set in segmental arches. The slightly uneven spacing of these windows and the larger than usual gap between the window heads and eaves suggest the building's earlier origins. The Cruxwell Street elevation has two irregularly spaced windows with segmental arched heads, one retaining small panes. There is a slight offset between the two bays on this side, and the right bay retains a brick eaves course, though the roof line is continuous and may represent the original solar wing. Number 57 retains a late 19th or early 20th-century double-fronted shop-front with an inset glazed door and slender mullions.

The original plan comprised an open hall occupying roughly the central section of the High Street frontage, with a floored extension to the left and a solar at the corner to the right. The space between the end of the former hall wall and the present corner shop may indicate a former cross-passage.

Investigation by the Woolhope Club revealed that the original open hall measured approximately 6.4 metres by 5 metres and rose to the roof, with a floored extension to the south-east and a cross wing to the north-west incorporating a solar, possibly positioned above service rooms, buttery and pantry. Mouldings indicate a 15th-century date, and structural analysis suggests the solar originally had a gable facing High Street. Floors and ceilings were inserted during the 17th century.

In number 57, a truss from the hall survives in the attic. The upper faces of the collar and principal rafters are chamfered and cusped to form a trefoil. The truss is of unusual construction, with the rear half comprising a cruck blade while the front section consists of a post with the principal rafter jointed to it. The timbers are smoke-blackened, demonstrating that the structure was formerly open to the roof. Two cusped wind-braces remain in place, and mortices for others are visible. On either side of the truss is a section of moulded wallplate, and decorative moulding of the structural timbers is visible approximately 3.6 metres above ground level. On the present first floor, structural timber-framing and the lower sections of the truss are exposed.

In number 59, two roof trusses over the former solar wing are reported to survive. One features a braced collar similar to that in the hall, while the other has cusped raking braces from the tie beam to the principal rafters. Remnants of wallplate survive on the Cruxwell Street side. The present roof structure reportedly contains reused timber, very likely from the earlier roof.

Number 55 corresponds with the floored extension to the hall identified in the Woolhope investigation. The present first floor retains timber-framing to the walls, mostly with wattle and daub infill. The first-floor ceiling features shaped main joists and chamfered and stopped beams.

In the early 19th century, the frontage was rebuilt in brick and the stone roof tiles were replaced with slate to form a continuous range spanning the corner of High Street and Cruxwell Street.