16, Mealcheapen Street

No. 16 Mealcheapen Street is a shop and former inn, dating to 1748, with later alterations, including a shop front from the 1980s. The building’s construction incorporates reddish-brown brick in a Flemish bond, along with ashlar quoins, sills, architraves, a cornice, and copings. The roof is concealed, and the building is likely timber-framed.

The exterior is three storeys high, featuring five first-floor windows. Angular quoins define the corners, and an elaborately moulded cornice, featuring ovolo, step, and cyma reversa mouldings, runs along the top, supporting a parapet with ovolo-moulded copings. The first and second floors have 6/6 flush sash windows. The central windows on each floor have flat arches constructed of gauged brick with raised keystones, incised panels, and moulded cornices. Shaped sills feature on the windows, with the central first-floor window distinguished by a tooled, eared architrave, a frieze, a segmental pediment, and an elaborately moulded sill supported on corbel brackets. The central window on the second floor also features an eared architrave, raised centrally, with a similarly elaborate sill on corbel brackets. The ground-floor shop front has plate-glass windows and a central glazed entrance.

The ground floor retains no evidence of the original plan or features, though the roof incorporates raised principals (known as 'upper crucks') and collars. The first floor is said to retain early panelling and fluted pilasters to the front room.

Historically, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, Nos. 15 and 16 were leased together and first licensed as an inn in 1608. The inn, known as The Prince’s Arms (dedicated to Prince Henry), was rebuilt in 1618 and again in its present form in 1748. During the 19th century, it was known as The Shades. Mealcheapen Street thrived particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries as a retail area, its prosperity linked to its proximity to the Cornmarket, which led to the establishment of several large inns. The listed buildings in Mealcheapen Street form a group with those in Cornmarket and with the Church of St Swithun, Church Street.