17 Main Street

17 Main Street is a former commercial premises built in 1893 to architectural designs by Josiah Gunton. It now operates as a heritage centre and residential unit.

The building is a two-storey rectangular structure facing north onto Main Street. It is steel-framed with walls of red or gault brick and a slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles. The interior is clad in pine and features exposed steel scissor-truss roof trusses over the first floor of the commercial unit (boxed-in within the residential unit).

The principal elevation faces north with a half-timbered gable to the ground and first floor, featuring plain bargeboards to overhanging eaves. The gable originally had a terracotta finial at its apex, which no longer survives. Giant red brick piers at the corners support the shopfront, glazed to the ground floor with moulded brick entablature at first floor level. The ground and first floor fascias are of steel girders with plain cornices. The lettering 'J.H. ADAMS & SONS' is applied to the front ground floor fascia. Four bays to the front and two to the side contain large plate-glass display windows in slender, shoulder-arched cast-iron frames. The ground floor has a chamfered sill over panelled stallrisers, one panel to each bay. The two bays either side of the north-east corner are recessed, entered from Main Street via folding wrought-iron gates dated 1892 and partially replaced. The recessed porch has a tiled floor of small square black and white tiles within a diamond margin and a mirrored ceiling. The angled entrance door is half-glazed with a timber panel to the lower part, decorated with etched lettering 'H & J CUTLACK / IRONMONGERS' and a fleur-de-lis, and hand-painted lettering 'ADAMS & SONS' over a plain rectangular overlight.

Beyond the shopfront, the building is constructed of gault brick. The east side has four bays of segmental-arched windows with red brick voussoirs, containing single-pane timber-framed sash windows. The northmost bay of the ground floor has a four-panelled door with glazed upper panels and a plain rectangular overlight. The south gable retains its central and east window on the first floor. The west side is no longer visible following construction of an attached building around 2012.

The steel-framed structure enables a large open-plan arrangement at ground and first floor levels. The majority of the first floor is partitioned as a residential unit, with only a rectangular-plan section of the commercial unit remaining, accessible from stairs along the east wall.

Along the west wall of the ground floor are long lengths of full-height mid-19th-century wooden shelving, relocated in 1893 from Lincolne's chemist in Ely (established in 1847). The fitted shelving features a cornice with ovolo moulding, shouldered frames to pairs of shelves with ornate carvings and slender engaged columns with foliated capitals over long octagonal plinths. Under the shelves are 177 drawers arranged in sections of either 4 or 6 rows, with two rows of storage bins below.

The long straight stair along the south end of the east wall has square newel posts with ball finials, a plain handrail, turned stick balusters, and a wooden stair gate of the same design on the half-landing. Inside the display windows of the principal elevation are two wooden-framed 12-pane sliding doors providing access to the display windows.

A former L-plan cash office in the south-west corner was enlarged around 2012 to provide a rectangular-plan kitchenette. The floor is timber boarded and retains the channels of a former steam heating system, formerly with cast-iron grates (which no longer survive).

At first-floor level, the balustrade continues around the rectangular-plan stair well. The west wall (introduced around 2012) displays late-19th-century shelving bearing the makers mark of 'F E & G MAUND / COMPLETE SHOP FITTERS / 336, OLD ST LONDON', previously located along the west wall of the first floor. This shelving features a long cornice and shelves over a workbench, beneath which are sliding doors to cupboards at the south end and shelves at the north end, separated by foliated console brackets.

The first-floor residential unit, accessed from the neighbouring building to the south, retains mid-19th-century shelving along the south end of the west wall (similar to the ground floor shelving but with only shelves and no drawers), and late-19th-century shelving to the north.