5 And 6, Wood Street

A house, now shops and offices, was built around 1595, after a fire, for Abraham Sturley. It was altered later, with the addition of a top storey and a refronting in 1815. The building is timber-framed with a painted brick front and has a tile roof with a brick stack featuring octagonal shafts. It is three storeys high, with a six-window front. A coped parapet tops the building. A lower wing with a carriageway on the left has an early 19th-century canted bay window above, with a cornice over 8:16:8-pane sashes. Modern shop fronts are present. The upper floors have windows with sills and rubbed brick flat arches. The first floor has 12-pane sashes, and a canted bay window with a cornice over 2:4:2-pane sashes. The second floor has small-paned horizontally sliding sashes flanking a blind window in No. 5; No. 6 has 9-pane sashes flanking a blind window. A central first-floor window in No. 5 has an infill with pilasters and an entablature, containing three panels, one with a clock face, and a date of 1977 at the top. The rear of the building has two gabled wings flanking a gabled staircase wing, with some exposed timber-framing. Inside No. 6, there is a good early 17th-century moulded plaster ceiling bearing the initials 'IR' (James I), and a first-floor plaster fireplace with scroll motifs, roses, and a reversed lion rampant, similar to work found in Harvard House on High Street. The building served as the Unicorn Inn from 1630 to 1775.