Nos. 16 and 18 High Street (including Steeple Gate)

Nos. 16 and 18 High Street (including Steeple Gate)

No. 16 is an early 16th-century timber-framed building which incorporates Steeple Gate, a pedestrian gateway to Ely Cathedral. No. 18 is an 18th-century brick shop. Both buildings have undergone later alterations and are now occupied as a cafe. Beneath them lies a 14th-century lierne vaulted cellar.

No. 16 is timber-framed and plastered with a tiled roof. No. 18 is of brick with some re-used medieval ashlar, also plastered with a tiled roof. The two buildings form part of an irregular east-to-west aligned row on the south side of the High Street.

No. 16 rises to three storeys with an open gateway (Steeple Gate) at ground floor level and jettied upper storeys. Large posts flank the gateway to the north-west and south-west corners. The north-west post has curved braces rising to support the western cross rail and northern jetty plate. The south-west post's braces are now missing, and the posts and braces on the east side were removed when No. 18 was rebuilt in the 18th century. The bressumers to both jettied upper storeys are decorated with foliate designs incorporating renaissance motifs, including grotesque faces. Both upper floors have a single six-over-six unhorned sash window in a flush cased frame.

No. 18 is of two storeys. The ground floor has a 19th-century wooden shop-front with plain pilasters, a shallow fascia between console brackets, and a 20th-century door to the right of a plate glass window. The first floor has a six-over-six unhorned sash in a flush cased frame. A 20th-century cast-iron lamp projects from the wall at the left of the window. Above is a dentilled eaves cornice.

The rear of No. 16 has two heavily decorated bressumers with renaissance motifs. The first floor features a 16th-century oriel window with moulded mullions and transom and a leaf-ornamented sill supported on brackets with floral motifs in the spandrels. The second floor has a 19th-century six-over-six horned sash in a flush cased frame. A late-20th-century range of one-and-a-half storeys projects from the rear of No. 18, constructed from gault brick with reclaimed and modern clay tiles. Both west and south sides have two six-over-six horned sashes with cambered heads; the south side sashes are separated by a doorway. The attic storey has two box dormers on the west side with three-over-three horned sashes and a single box dormer on the south side, also with a three-over-three horned sash. The first floor of the 18th-century range was partially rebuilt in the late 20th century with removal of the stack and a new dentilled eaves cornice. Above is a late-20th-century box dormer with a three-over-three horned sash to the attic.

The 14th-century cellar beneath lies at three bays in width. The western and central bays are roughly equal in size while the eastern bay is narrower. The vaulting has deeply chamfered freestone ribs springing from semi-octagonal stone vaulting shafts. The walls are constructed from re-used stone and brick, including sections of column shafts with profiles suggesting a 12th-century date for the original working. The walls have blind arches of moulded and chamfered brick, with some late-20th-century reconstruction, while webbing between the ribs is brick with small patches of render visible. The transverse rib between the central and western bay contains faint remains of decorative paintwork showing a series of red flowers formed of five separately articulated petals, with faint traces of a blue background and some form of scrolled or curving motif.

The cellar's eastern wall is formed of large pieces of rubble stone. The differentiated use of stone for freestanding elements and brick for engaged elements suggests the cellar originally continued further east, making this wall a later addition. The current easternmost transverse rib is of stone, suggesting it originally formed a freestanding part of the vault, with the east face of the shaft appearing to be chamfered. The vaulting shaft in the north wall of the east bay includes the side of an arched stone opening, possibly indicating a former doorway. A narrow passageway constructed from large rubble stone blocks with some brick runs from the south of the east bay, most likely leading to a former staircase. The west wall of the western bay, which appears always to have represented the final bay in this direction, has been reconstructed in modern brick. In the north and south walls of this bay are two recesses. The southern recess extends the full width of the bay and has an arched head formed of the same chamfered brick as the blind arcading, but the opening is slightly lower with a depressed-arched head. The northern recess is narrower with its outer sides stepped in from the adjacent vaulting supports. Its lower sections are formed of large pieces of worked squared stone while the upper sections and the depressed-arched head are of chamfered brick with a central stone voussoir. Above is a small light well, partially rebuilt in modern brick. The cellar floor is of 19th-century gault and red brick with a central drainage channel. A low-level plinth of late-20th-century brick with a tile top runs around the sides of the east and central bays. The eastern part of the southern wall of the central bay has been largely rebuilt as part of the insertion of a late-20th-century entrance door, with a late-20th-century brick wall forming the corridor from the staircase.

The ground floor of the 18th-century front section to No. 18 has a contemporary ceiling beam to a plastered ceiling. The rear section is entirely late-20th-century in character, with a bare brick wall and machine-sawn ceiling joists. The first floors of Nos. 16 and 18, accessed by a late-20th-century staircase, have been amalgamated, with the division between the two buildings marked by a 16th-century wall post and cross beam. All other walls and ceilings are plastered and painted. The roof structure to No. 16 is a late-20th-century softwood replacement, though some framework from the 18th-century roof still survives in situ.