110 AND 110A, HIGH STREET

This building, now a shop and restaurant with offices above, dates to the early 16th century, with substantial alterations in the early 19th century and the 20th. It is timber-framed, with a plastered facade from the early 19th century, continuing the style of the adjacent No. 108. The building is two storeys high, and behind the parapet are two roofs, one parallel to the street and one at a right angle, separated by a stack. The roofs are covered in peg tiles and slate. The ground floor has two 20th-century shop fronts that have been considerably altered, though No. 110 retains more of its original form. The first floor has two windows with horned sashes and 4x4 panes. The rear elevation is largely obscured by 19th and 20th-century extensions to Hart Street, which are not of special architectural interest and are not included in the listing.

The interior of No. 110 reveals a two-bay east cross-wing of what was originally an H-plan hall house. On the ground floor, the ceiling joists run at right angles to the street and are of heavy scantling, likely originally jettied to the street (now concealed by a boxed-in bressumer). A central storey post is visible on the east side, with mortices and grooves indicating a partition that turns at a right angle in the rear bay to define a passage on the west side leading to the back. This partition stops short of the rear wall to allow access from the passage to the next bay. The configuration suggests a medieval shop at the front with a rear ‘overshot’ cross-passage. On the first floor a fragment of a brace from the visible central storey post rises to a tie-beam, now sealed above the ceiling. The roof is largely intact, featuring an end braced collar purlin and some chamfer decoration on the slightly cambered tie-beam. Soot deposits on the outer face of the west wall plate indicate that there was originally an open hall on the site of No. 110A, which has since been completely rebuilt with a low-pitch softwood roof. The roof of No. 110 is notably similar to that of No. 112, but with slightly smaller timbers. This, combined with the cross-passage partitioning and front shop, shows it to be the ‘low’ or service end of a medieval hall house, with No. 112 representing the ‘high’ end cross-wing. The building forms a group with Nos. 108-114 (even) and No. 120.