37, West Street

House. Built in the early 15th century, with alterations in the 18th century and 1984. The house is timber-framed, with plaster and weatherboarding, and a roof of handmade red plain tiles. It originally comprised a 2-bay service crosswing, forming part of a former hall house, facing north. A parallel 2-bay wing was added in the 18th century, with a 20th-century internal stack on the left side and a 20th-century extension to the rear, with a single-storey lean-to beyond. The house has two storeys. The ground floor has two late 19th-century sash windows of 4 lights, with inserted glazing bars, which now appear as 8 horizontal panes. The first floor has two similar unaltered sash windows. There is a six-panel door in a plain doorcase with a flat canopy supported by profiled brackets; one stone step has a wrought iron bootscraper. The roof is hipped and aligned parallel to the street, spanning both wings. There is concave coving below the eaves at the front and sides, a 20th-century imitation of the original 18th-century feature. Some weatherboarding is visible in the right return. The right wing reveals widely spaced timber studs with trenched curved bracing in the axial partition. The interior features plain joists jointed to a binding beam with unrefined central tenons. There is an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the right wallplate. A window at the rear of the first floor has 3 diamond mullions (one repaired) and a shutter groove; another shutter groove is in the right wallplate. The roof is a crownpost construction, complete in the rear bay and rebuilt in the front bay, featuring an axial brace 0.06 metres wide, and original patterned daub above the central tiebeam. Photographs owned by the current owners show the house stripped to the frame in 1984, revealing primary straight bracing in both parts of the front wall. The roof of the left wing incorporates re-used smoke-blackened rafters from a medieval hall.