Number 54 New Road and workshops attached and to the rear

Number 54 New Road and Workshops Attached and to the Rear

A house with attached workshop range and a separate workshop range, dating from around 1850. The buildings are constructed in Flemish bond brick with painted stone dressings and plain tile roofs.

The House and Attached Workshop Range

The house has two storeys and an attic. The southern street front comprises two bays. To the left is a doorway with four raised panels and a rectangular fanlight, flanked by pilaster strips with raised decoration, vestigial caps and bases, and a dentilled line below the projecting cornice. To the right is a tripartite window with horns and painted stone sill and lintel. At first floor level are sash windows—the window above the door is narrower with eight panes, and to its right is a twelve-pane sash. To the right of the house is a covered wagon entrance with wooden gates and a wooden awning above. The building adjoins others to its left which are set back. The right-hand gable end is blank except for a two-light casement window at attic level, positioned between chimneystacks. To the rear, at ground and first floor levels, are sixteen-pane sash windows. Projecting at the right is a single-storey rear wing, except at its right bays where it joins the house, which rise to two storeys. This wing has an eastern-side ground floor doorway to its left, a three-light casement to its right, and at first floor level a single-light and three-light casement. To the right of this the workshop range has two doorways with flat lintels and six multi-paned windows with fixed metal frames.

Interior: The entrance hallway features a dado picture rail, moulded cornice, and clay tile flooring. The back parlour contains a slate fire surround with a grate replaced by a late 19th or early 20th-century insert with matching contemporary tiles. The front parlour's similar fireplace was added in the 1980s during conversion to a museum. Both rooms have deep cornices and central roses. The rear room has a fitted cupboard. The kitchen has a tall fire surround incorporating the range. Stairs to the first floor lead up from the rear parlour with winder treads at the bottom. First floor rooms contain further late 19th or early 20th-century fireplaces, one set in a mid-19th-century surround with roundels to the upper corners. The workshop range, formerly a japanning shop that also functioned as the family laundry, retains a tub on its west wall and the japanning kiln on its east side. The former stamping shop to the rear of the yard has been cleared of machinery and benches and now functions as an education room for school groups.

The Range of Workshops to the East of the Yard at Rear

Exterior: The east front has three wide bays of windows to each floor. Ground floor windows have cambered heads; first floor windows have flat heads with four or five lights each. The north and south gable walls are blank. Attached to the south is a small single-storey gabled building now used as a locksmith's workshop. At the north end, a range of lavatories has been added for the museum. The west front, facing the yard, has a similar arrangement to the east face, with broad cambered-headed windows at ground floor level and straight-headed windows at first floor level. A wooden external staircase rises to the first floor in one straight flight. There are two doors at ground floor level and one at first floor level.

Interior: Forges are located at both floors at the south end and at first floor level at the north. Work benches are positioned beneath the windows and at the centre of the first floor room. The ground floor contains a large fly press believed to be original equipment, with belt-driven shafts suspended from the ceiling driven by an electric engine at ground floor level. The original machinery has been considerably augmented by equipment brought in from elsewhere, creating a convincing impression of the locksmith factory's manufacturing process.