33 High Street

33 High Street is a shop building of medieval origin, dating from the 13th or 14th century with 16th-century additions. Originally timber-framed, it has been substantially rebuilt and enlarged in brick during the 18th century, extensively refurbished in the 19th century, and reconfigured with a modern open shop floor in the 20th century.

The exterior comprises a front range and rear range, each of three storeys. The front range presents two bays to the street, topped by a pitched slate roof. The upper storeys are separated by a storey band. The second floor contains two four-paned sash windows set under the eaves, while the first floor has two square bay windows with four-paned sashes positioned between the storey band and the ground floor shop-front cornice. The shop front, dating from the 19th or early 20th century, features plate glass windows with panelled surrounds and a cornice supported by console brackets. A wide, centrally placed entrance flanked by plate glass windows breaks the frontage.

The rear range faces onto High Street Passage to the west and is divided into two sections, with the southern section projecting slightly forward. Each section has sash windows to the first and second floors. At ground floor level, the south section displays two full-height display windows: the first with similar panelled surround detailing, and the second with a slightly bowed plate glass window flanked by slender plain pilasters and plain console brackets supporting a moulded entablature. The northern section has a window matching the first in the south section.

The interior ground floor has been largely reconfigured as a single open shop space with modern ceilings, except for one section retaining 16th-century timber beams and joists. This surviving timber work appears to have originally formed a middle bay of a building of at least four bays, with an open hall and a western jetty. Two north-south axial beams define the extent of the surviving bay. The north beam is elaborately moulded on its south side with alternating rolls and cavettos, but chamfered plainly on its north side. Along the underside of this beam are mortices indicating a former internal partition dividing two spaces. The south axial beam is moulded on both sides, matching the south-side moulding of the north beam.

A central spine beam runs between the two axial beams, decorated with matching elaborate moulding, and both ends terminate in bar stops with inscribed foliate decoration. Either side of the spine beam are a series of joists with double-roll profiles and run-out stops. Seven joists to the west run into a jetty bressumer positioned just above the bow window. The chamfer stops of four of these joists are positioned approximately 50 centimetres from the window end, marking the original wall line of the earlier building; beyond these stops to the bressumer, the joists show plain square profile. Two of the six western joists are not stopped until they meet the bressumer, a discrepancy attributed in the research report to possible later removal and mis-replacement.

The undercroft, presently inaccessible as of 2016 (with its entrance beneath the shop sales counter), is described in the 1993 List entry as constructed of ashlar masonry with some brick in a roughly rectangular plan measuring at least 16 metres from front to back wall and divided into three bays. An internal ashlar wall separates the northern and central bays, the latter containing a long round-headed arch possibly serving a storage function. Several moulded beams are present in this chamber. The west wall of the central bay has two cuts to street level, one a stair, while the south bay features a square niche in its west wall and stone steps rising to street level in the south-west corner.