25 And 27, The Street

Nos. 25 and 27 on The Street are two adjacent houses that were combined to form a range of three tenements, which were in the process of being converted back into two houses at the time of the survey in February 1985. The first house dates from the mid-16th century and has 20th-century additions, while the second house is from the early 17th century, with 18th and 20th-century additions. Both houses are timber framed, plastered, and roofed with handmade red clay tiles.

The first house has three bays facing northeast, featuring an original external stack behind the middle bay and a 20th-century stack at the left end. There are also 20th-century extensions at the rear, which were incomplete during the survey. The second house has three bays facing northwest, with an internal stack in the middle bay, originally designed with a lobby-entrance plan. It includes a small two-storey 18th-century extension at the front with a hipped roof and a 20th-century extension to the right, forming an L-plan with No. 25.

Both houses are two storeys high. The elevation facing The Street has a four-window range of 20th-century casements and a plain boarded door. The first house features an underbuilt jetty along its full length, while No. 27 has a 20th-century door in the small 18th-century extension on the right.

The first house exhibits jowled posts, close studding with curved braces trenched to the outside at the rear, and wallplates and tiebeams that are chamfered with step stops. It also has edge-halved and bridled scarfs, shutter grooves for unglazed windows, and a blocked doorway between the middle and right bays with hollow-chamfered jambs, although the head is missing. On the right side of this wall, in No. 27, there is oak panelling from around 1600, which has been plastered over. The ground-floor hearth of the rear stack features a chamfered mantel beam with a chamfer that curves down the brick jambs, a rare detail. There is also an inserted window of early glazed type with a moulded sill on the first floor, which is blocked.

The second house has jowled posts, face-halved and bladed scarfs, and wallplates and axial beams that are chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, along with plain joists of vertical section. On the first floor, there is an original spice cupboard in the stack, featuring a moulded four-panel oak door, which is a rare feature. At the time of the survey, No. 17 comprised this house and the right bay of the first house. Most of the panelling previously recorded by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England is now missing or possibly covered.