96, High Street

No. 96 High Street is a house that is part of a terrace, currently used as a shop and offices. It was built around 1750 to 1760, with some later additions and alterations. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and features a slate roof with a parapet. There is a stack on the left front roof slope that has an oversailing detail. The shop front is made of timber and the building is situated on a narrow burgage plot, oriented at right angles to the street. It has three storeys and a basement, with three first-floor windows.

Stone detailing includes sills and capped keystones above the window heads. The windows are 6/6 near-flush-frame sashes, all set under flat gauged brick arches. The late 19th-century shopfront has undergone some repairs and alterations in the late 20th century. It features slender fluted pilasters, a fascia with console brackets and a cornice, and a central panelled pillar with a recessed entrance behind it. The shopfront also has a shallow panelled stall riser, slender turned mullions with moulded plinths and capitals, and a two-panel door that is shallow raised and fielded with a glazed panel above and an overlight. There is a six-panel door to the left with an overlight that provides access to the upper floors.

A new roof structure was added around 1988. A historical note mentions a photograph from a 1911 advertisement for 'Sigley's China Store' at this address, which shows the same basic form of the shopfront but without the central panelled pillar, suggesting that this feature may have been added for structural reasons.