62, High Street

This is a house, now a shop, dating back to around 1400, with alterations in the 19th century. It is timber-framed and rendered, with a peg-tiled roof. The building has a rectangular plan, two storeys and an attic. The north front has a gabled shape and is slightly asymmetrical. The ground floor features a symmetrical shop front from the 19th century, with a bracketed hood over a central door, and a window on each side, each with a central vertical glazing bar. The shop door has two upper glazed panels and two smaller lower panels, with moulded surrounds. On the east side, in a passageway connecting to South Street, there is a timber-framed wall with a two-centred arched doorway; this section contains significant brick replacement of the original stud and rail. A sash window with 4x4 panes is located on the first floor. The rear, south elevation is irregular, with a timber-framed addition. The main roof runs east to west, with a narrow three-storey addition at the east end which connects with the adjacent building at number 60 over the passageway. A 19th-century double casement window with 2x2 panes is present on the first floor, and a 2-light casement window with 2x2 panes on the second floor. There is also an early 19th-century timber-framed, plastered lean-to on the ground floor.

The interior has been considerably subdivided and is largely obscured. However, at the upper part of the east partition wall shared with number 60, toward the front of the house, there is a post braced both axially and transversely. Close to the rear of the same wall is an octagonal post with a capital and astragal of early perpendicular profile. While its precise original function is unclear, these features suggest the presence of a former hall. The octagonal post may have been moved and likely once served as a central crown post to an open hall, and the bracing might be remains of an arcade plate supporting an aisled hall. Number 60 is a larger unit and has a heavy brace to the rear, likely of the same period and construction as number 62. Numbers 62 and 60 probably represent a hall and cross-wing originally built around 1400, with South Street cutting through the cross-wing’s side partition wall. Number 64 may represent a second cross-wing of an H-plan hall house added later. A "king post with moulded capital" is also mentioned, and is likely the same feature as the octagonal crown post. Later alterations include the insertion of a first floor and the addition of a gabled frontage with a street-facing window, which may have originally been jettied. Nos. 60, 62 & 64 form a group.