48 St Mary's Street

48 St Mary's Street is a house of probable late 15th-century origin, altered in the 17th century, re-fronted in the 18th century, extended in the 19th century, and altered in the 20th century. It forms part of a terrace facing south-east onto St Mary's Street.

The building retains partial survival of timber frame beneath yellow stock brick with red brick dressings and a plain clay tile roof. It consists of a front range with rectangular plan, a 19th-century cross wing at the north-west end, and a long 19th-century rear range running parallel on the south-west side.

The building is two storeys high with an attic and a cellar below the 19th-century cross wing. The pitched roof carries a dentilled eaves cornice, with parapet and tumbled brickwork on the right (north-east) gable end through which rises a wide brick chimney stack.

The five-bay façade has red brick quoins and a first-floor storey band. The two left bays of the ground floor contain a 20th-century shop front in simple neo-Classical style. The central bay holds a recessed early 19th-century four-panelled front door with raised and fielded upper panels and moulded lower panels, set in a doorcase with pilasters with square capitals, panelled jambs, plain frieze and a fanlight with geometric glazing bar pattern. The 19th-century windows are set flush with the wall and have segmental brick arches. The two ground-floor bays to the right are lit by large eight-over-eight pane sash windows. On either side of the right-hand window are bricked up window openings with segmental brick arches. To the right again is another bricked up opening possibly a doorway, followed by part of the red brick surround of a bricked up archway. The first floor is lit by five six-over-six pane sashes with brick surrounds and projecting decorative iron sills. The attic is lit by five flat-headed dormer windows with six-pane sliding sashes set wholly in the roof space.

Built against the north-east gable end is an archway (part of 46 St Mary's Street) providing access to the rear. To the right of the archway is the three-storey 19th-century cross wing with no window openings on its front. The gabled rear (north-west) elevation of this wing is three window bays wide with plain bargeboards. There are two shallow arched basement openings. The outer bays of the ground floor contain a door with two-panelled lower section and glazed upper section with glazing bar margin-lights, the left door also having flanking margin-lights. The middle bay is lit by a large two-over-two pane sash window. These openings have cambered and gauged brick arches, as do all openings on this elevation. The outer bays of the first floor have full height casement windows with glazing bar margin lights and decorative cast iron balconies. The middle bay is lit by a two-over-two pane sash window, and the second floor by two windows in the same style.

The long two-storey brick rear range has been subject to much alteration and repair with numerous blocked and altered openings. The windows are 20th-century, as is a first-floor door, whilst the ground-floor door is 19th-century. The roof pitch and covering could not be established in 2016.

Internally, the principal area of interest is the south-west (left) end of the house, which retains late 15th-century fabric. In the ground-floor room (commercial premises in 2016), the ceiling structure comprises a spine beam running laterally (north-east to south-west) through the building with a series of joists of square profile joining into the spine beam with spurred upper shoulder joints. The spine beam is elaborately moulded with a hollow chamfer and two rolls, above which it is further embellished with a series of crenellations. Neither end of the beam is stopped, which could suggest that the full width of the bay is not currently visible. Above this room on the first floor, partial survival of two trusses is visible. The south-western most truss is represented by a partially exposed elbowed post at the north-western end supporting a cross beam. The truss to the north-east comprises two elbowed posts and a remaining section of what appears to be the original collar beam. The north-western post is largely concealed by later plasterwork. A series of timber studs inserted south-east of the truss, supporting a beam running in line with the earlier collar, possibly date to the 17th-century alterations.

Few 18th or 19th-century fixtures or fittings remain, other than several four-panelled doors, and most plaster cornices do not appear to be original. The central front door opens into the entrance hall leading to a self-contained flat on the right (north-east) and to the rear staircase hall in the cross wing. The open well stripped pine stair has a panelled spandrel, carved tread ends, two slender turned balusters per tread, and a scrolled handrail supported by a decorative cast-iron newel post. On the first floor the three bays to the right (north-east) are occupied by a large drawing room which has a 17th-century chamfered spine beam with scrolled and notched stop. The unpainted neo-Classical style fireplace and swan's nest grate is not original to the house. The lower part of the roof structure is obscured by inserted attic rooms but the upper section is visible and is of common rafter form, with rafters meeting in mortice and tenon joint pegged with a single central peg.

The rear range has been converted into ten flats and was not available for inspection in 2016.