29 And 31, Church Street

This is a house, now divided into two flats, dating back to the 17th century or earlier, with alterations made in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is timber framed and originally plastered, with a front facade of red brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern, and has a roof covered with handmade red plain tiles. The main range of the house faces southeast, and is connected to three shorter wings at the rear, forming a rectangular shape. The central wing is narrower than the others. There are axial chimney stacks in the left and middle wings, with a 20th-century external stack to the right wing. An 18th or early 19th century single-storey extension with a flat roof projects to the right of the main range. A 19th-century brick extension is located at the rear of the left wing, set at a right angle to the wing itself. A 19th-century single-storey lean-to extension with a slate roof is attached to the rear of the other wings.

The front of the house has two storeys. The ground floor features six 18th or early 19th century sash windows, each with a segmental head and an arch of gauged brickwork. The first floor has five similar sashes and one blank recess above the front door. The central front door is within a doorcase with panelled jambs, a soffit, an eared and moulded architrave, projecting false keystones, and a moulded pediment supported by scrolled brackets. Two stone steps lead up to the door, with two cast iron bootscrapers. A plain band runs along the first-floor level, extending to the right on the extension. The brick facade continues across the small extension on the right, appearing to be seamlessly joined, and has high-quality tuck pointing that occasionally disregards the original brick courses. There is a moulded eaves cornice. Later 19th-century false framing is visible on the right return and rear gables, and late 19th-century moulded and indented bargeboards decorate the right gable. The rear elevation has two early 19th century sashes with twelve lights on the first floor.

Inside, a deeply chamfered axial beam is exposed over the entrance hall; this has been boxed in within the adjacent rooms and does not extend into the right-hand room. There are folding shutters in two of the ground-floor front rooms, missing from the third room. The internal doors are four-panelled, with one door featuring lincrusta panelling. The walls are lined with plain softwood boarding, partially covered with canvas, a rare and notable feature. A quarter-turn staircase from the early 19th century has a wreathed and moulded handrail, stick balusters (some replaced), and scrolled tread-ends. There is an Art Nouveau grate on one first-floor room and a late 19th-century cast iron grate in the first floor of the rear extension. The smoke-blackened rafters, pegged at the apexes, are visible over the narrow rear wing, but access to the other roofs is not possible. The original timber frame is largely concealed by the later 18th and 19th century finishes.