12 and 14 Drapers Lane

House and shop constructed during the early to mid-C18, altered during the late-C19 with a new shopfront and windows.

MATERIALS: the building is rendered externally, with a timber and glass shopfront on the ground floor onto Drapers Lane. The roof covering is understood to be composite tile.

PLAN: the building occupies an almost square plan with a principal frontage onto Drapers Lane to the east and a flank elevation fronting Cordwainers Lane to the north.

EXTERIOR: the building is three storeys in height plus cellar, across two wide bays onto both Drapers Lane and Cordwainers Lane, under a hipped roof. The principal, east elevation is symmetrically arranged with a good quality late-C19 shopfront with Classical motifs and a canted central entrance with a panelled, half-glazed door. Either side of the entrance is a moulded stone plinth and low, moulded timber stallrisers which are intersected by cast iron cellar grilles, with slender mullions framing large, plate-glass shop windows. Above the shop windows is a fascia board with egg and dart mouldings to the cornice and architrave, terminated by elaborate console brackets rising from panelled pilasters which frame the shopfront. The shopfront returns a short way onto the north elevation.

The first and second floors each contain a pair of late-C19 horned sash windows with two-over-two glazing, set within moulded timber surrounds which sit proud of the stuccoed façade. Above the second-floor windows is a modern fascia board and guttering.

Within the easternmost section of the north elevation fronting Cordwainers Lane, there is a two-over-two glazed, timber sash window with horns and a moulded timber surround on the first and second floors over the shopfront return. Further to the west on the ground floor, there is a C19 plank door, a C20, four-panelled door with barred overlight and a shop window blocked with timber planks, all unified by a timber fascia board. Above this arrangement, there is a large, timber sash window with ten-over-ten glazing, set within a moulded timber surround on the first floor, and a two-over-two sash window, possibly uPVC, on the second floor.