9 Market Street

9 Market Street

A high-status vernacular 17th-century house with extensions and alterations carried out in every subsequent century.

The building is principally constructed of limestone rubble with freestone dressings, extended in brick, and roofed in Welsh slate. The historic plan form has been lost. It is now divided between shops at ground floor and other accommodation above.

The principal elevation faces north on to Market Street. It is six bays wide and three storeys high, with a pitched roof covered in Welsh slate ending in a chimney stack at the east end. The ground and first floors are built of limestone rubble with freestone quoins and a cornice beneath the 19th-century brick-built second floor. Two 20th-century shop fronts occupy the ground floor. Two-light stone mullioned windows survive at ground and first floor to the right of centre. A third mullioned window has been infilled at basement level on the far left-hand side. Changes in the stonework indicate where earlier windows have been removed; one at first floor on the right-hand side has been infilled with a carved head-stop amongst the rubble. 18th- or early 19th-century sash windows have been introduced at first floor, and three 19th-century casement windows are present at second floor.

The east elevation comprises a single gable adjoining 7a Market Street (Grade II) on the left-hand side. Scars in the stonework indicate the steep pitch of the original roof, similar to that of the Black Bull diagonally opposite. A stone mullioned window remains at ground floor, and at first floor half of an original stone window surround remains, now blocked.

The west elevation faces a narrow alley and has a blind gable wall, with a blocked window at ground floor and a later stone-built porch. It adjoins a late 20th-century two-storey extension built of stretcher bond brick with a flat roof.

The rear elevations on the south side include the return elevation of the late 20th-century brick-built extension and a full-height 21st-century extension (unfinished and walled in chip-board at the time of inspection in 2022). A single-storey rendered breeze-block wall connects the principal structure to a massive 18th-century gault brick chimney stack, shared with 7b Market Street.

Internally, the building retains structural elements from its original phase, including principal beams and floor joists bearing carpenters' marks from assembly. The original beams are all chamfered with lambs tongue stops. The base of the massive early 18th-century chimney stack contains a very wide fireplace originally for an open fire in a large kitchen, later converted in the early 20th century to include a tiled range. The stairs were replaced in the 20th century.

Of particular interest internally are important wall paintings at first floor level. The most extensive survival is at the west end of the building, occurring across two walls: the western gable wall and the north wall facing Market Street.

In the western room, the western wall survives almost in its entirety, with small amounts of wattle-and-plaster ceiling material attached at its top. It displays three rows of fictive panelling above which are two wide landscapes with trees, hills, buildings and figures. The north wall clearly shows that there was originally a window at the left-hand side with wall paintings continuing into the window reveals. Surviving details include human figures in mid-17th-century dress and the continuation of the fictive panels.

In the eastern room, the eastern wall has a central corbel supporting a principal beam. There is a skin of earthen plaster over this wall retaining some painted elements on the right-hand side, above a 17th-century mantle-beam and altered fireplace. The painting consists of black lines, blue shading and white highlights forming a patterned strip of squares and diapers with wave-like borders above and below. Above this is a set of scrolls and balls with finials.

At ground floor level, number 9 extends into the floor plan of 7a. This is not repeated at first and second floor, where 7a oversails the small area of 9 below it.