18 And 20, Stoneham Street

A building of uncertain original purpose, possibly a public building and now a house, dates to the 14th or early 15th century, with alterations made in the 19th century. It is timber framed and partly plastered and weatherboarded, incorporating red brick in English bond, and has a roof of handmade red plain tiles. The building has four bays and a gable end facing the street. A 19th-century internal stack is located in the left front bay, and an 18th-century axial stack is in the third bay. There is a range of 19th-century ancillary buildings to the rear.

The building is two storeys high with a cellar. The ground floor features a single 18th-century oriel window with five lights, supported by a single twisted wrought iron stay, situated above an end jetty supported by two plain brackets. A 19th-century sash window with 16 lights is on the first floor. The front elevation is plastered, while the long right elevation is weatherboarded. There are 19th and 20th-century casement windows, two half-glazed doors, and one four-panel door. The middle and rear doors have simple canopies supported by profiled brackets. Diamond mortices are visible below the jetty.

Originally, the ground floor was partitioned between the second and third bays, and the third and fourth bays; the studding for the fourth bay is now missing. The interior features chamfered binding beams with step stops, and plain joists with unrefined central tenons. The joists in the rear two bays are straighter and of higher quality than those at the front. A blocked stair trap is located to the right of the third bay, next to a blocked large doorway, 1.37 metres wide, which rises through one and a half storeys, displaying an incomplete cambered head with one of two arched braces below. A 19th-century straight staircase with stick balusters is present. On the first floor, the only original partition is between the third and fourth bays; arched braces are visible in the open trusses. There are some indications of a former oriel window at the front, and blocked first-floor windows are located at each side near the front. One of these blocked doors was created by the construction of number 22, to the north. It retains two diamond mullions (visible in number 22). A large blocked aperture is present in the left wall of the second bay. Original wattle and daub infill is in the left wall of the third bay. The roof is a crownpost roof, without smoke-blackening.

The lower part of the rear wall, originally studded, is infilled with 16th-century bricks in English bond. The cellar below the front bay is an 18th or early 19th-century construction, using contemporary bricks in the rear cross-wall, and re-used earlier bricks elsewhere. There is no evidence of heating systems earlier than the 18th-century stack. The original purpose of the building remains problematic, but it may have been a court hall or been connected with trade, being situated at the north end of the market.