2-4, High Street

This is a house, now divided into three houses and a shop, dating from the 15th century. It has been altered in the 17th and 18th centuries and extended in the 19th. The building is timber-framed and plastered, with a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The original structure was a two-bay hall range facing northwest, with two two-bay crosswings added later. There are two axial chimney stacks, and an external stack to the left of the left crosswing. A two-storey extension from the 19th century extends to the rear of the right crosswing, with a single-storey extension beyond, both with slate roofs. A single-storey lean-to extension from the 18th or 19th century abuts the rear of the left crosswing and the left part of the hall range. Two single-storey shops from the 19th century are located to the left of the left crosswing, weatherboarded with slate roofs, and are now combined as one shop. These shops form an obtuse angle with the main elevation, following the line of Brook Street.

The building is two storeys with attics. The shop has a 20th-century casement window, a pair of 19th-century casement windows of 16 lights each, and a flush four-panel door. House number 2, which incorporates the left crosswing and part of the hall range, features two 18th-century splayed bay windows with sashes of 4-16-4 lights. The left window is under the jetty of the crosswing, with one exposed hollow-moulded bracket on the first floor. Above are three 18th-century sashes of 16 lights, and a 19th-century casement in a gabled dormer. There is a half-glazed door with a plain light above, and a utility passage with a 20th-century wrought iron gate. House number 3 has a similar splayed bay, a first-floor window, and a dormer, with a four-panel door and a simple bracketed hood. House number 4 has an underbuilt jetty, one 20th-century sash window, and two 20th-century splayed bay windows, with one 20th-century sash window on the first floor. There is an entrance in the right return wall. The right wall of the right crosswing has an 18th-century two-light window with one wrought iron casement, original sprockets, and two gabled dormers in that part of the roof.

The interior of the left crosswing contains an original unglazed window with pierced tracery on the first floor, blocked externally. It has a crownpost roof with a cross-quadrate crownpost and four-way bracing. The bracing was slightly altered where a hip roof was formed at the rear but is otherwise complete. The hall range was raised in the 17th century to align with the crosswings, and the roof reconstructed in a clasped purlin form. The right crosswing reveals double mortises for moulded mullions and grooves for sliding shutters below the underbuilt jetty. Also present is a steeply cambered and hollow-moulded mantel beam, with the brickwork of the hearth partly rebuilt, and a complete crownpost roof with a cross-quadrate crownpost and four-way bracing, exposed in the attic.