6 and 8, Bargates

Number 6 and 8 Bargates is a house that was later used as a shop and is now a garage. It dates from the mid to late 15th century and has late 19th-century alterations. The building is timber framed with plastered infill and pebbledashed at the front. The rear has been partly rebuilt in red brick. It features a 20th-century concrete tile roof with a gable at the front and consists of four or five framed bays positioned at right angles to the road.

The front has close studding in its framing, with a slightly jettied attic and gable, both supported by ovolo-moulded bressumers. The side panels are square (four from sole plate to wall plate) and include long straight tension braces. The building has two storeys and an attic, with a dentil brick band at the left-hand corner aligned with the attic bressumer. There is an integral brick lateral stack on the left side.

On the first floor, there is a central late 19th-century square oriel window featuring a 1-: 4-: 1-light wooden mullioned and transomed design, complete with a frieze and cornice. The ground floor has a late 19th-century shop front with cast-iron columns, plate-glass windows at the front and left side, an angled glazed door at the left-hand corner, and a deep fascia. The left-hand return front includes a ground-floor segmental-headed six-pane glazing bar sash. The right-hand return front shows the wall plate of a former framed wall above the later brickwork.

The rear gable reveals an exposed truss with a cambered tie-beam. There is a one-storey rear wing, partly timber framed, with an integral brick end stack. Inside, the former two-bay first-floor solar at the front was originally open to the roof but was divided horizontally by the attic floor, likely inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century. The central open truss of the former solar has curved brackets that support tie-stubs and a chamfered arched-braced cambered collar. There is an inserted 17th or 18th-century stud partition, and the single purlins have been altered with straight wind braces.