76, High Street

House, now 2 shops and house. 15th century or earlier, altered in the 18th century, extended in the 19th and 20th centuries. Timber-framed, plastered and weatherboarded, roofed with concrete tiles and handmade red clay tiles; partly of brick, roofed with slate.

The building comprises a short hall range facing south-east with a 16th-century internal stack near the left end in front of the main axis; a 2-bay cross-wing to the left with a 20th-century single-storey wing to the rear; a 3-bay cross-wing to the right; and a 15th-century or earlier 2-bay wing set obliquely to the rear left, following the shape of the site and jettied to the left, with an internal stack against the right wall. A 20th-century single-storey extension with flat roof connects these rear wings. To the left of the left cross-wing stands a mid-19th-century house of stock bricks roofed with slate, with 2 stacks at the right; a 19th-century single-storey lean-to extends to the rear, with a 20th-century conservatory or porch behind it. The building is two storeys.

The ground floor of the main building comprises 2 shops, each with a central glazed door and matching fascias across paired consoles dating to the early 20th century; the left window of the right shop is blocked. The first floor has a painted brick façade. Above the left shop are 2 early 19th-century sashes of 6+6 lights reaching the eaves; above the right shop are 2 similar sashes set lower with segmental brick arches. The roof has a gable hip at the right and a plain hip at the left; the stack shaft was rebuilt in the 19th century. The attached house to the left has a painted brick façade with one mid-19th-century sash of 3+3 lights on each floor, the lower with a segmental brick arch. The left return is cement rendered above a brick plinth, with a 4-panel door and plain overlight numbered No. 76; it has a hipped slate roof. The right return of the main range and the right side of the rear right wing are weatherboarded, with 20th-century brickwork against the stack. Original wide rafters and shaped sprockets are visible below the eaves. Below the jetty of this wing, one plain solid bracket 0.14 metres wide is visible, original; most of the jetty is obstructed by the 20th-century extension. This wing has a gabled roof of handmade red clay tiles. The rear elevation of this wing has on the ground floor one early 19th-century tripartite sash, altered, and on the first floor one early 19th-century sash of 8+8 lights.

INTERIOR: The ground floor is much altered for use as 20th-century shops; all surfaces are plastered or boarded, beams boxed, and all internal partitions removed. The first floor of the left cross-wing, occupied residentially, has chamfered wallplates and a chamfered and cambered tie-beam, all with step stops. One early 19th-century semi-elliptical arch spans a door. The first floor of the right cross-wing has studs approximately 0.40 metres apart and an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the left wallplate. One wide curved brace is trenched inside the studs of the rear wall. Both internal tie-beams are missing; the space is ceiled to collars at half-height. The first floor of the main range retains incomplete 18th-century pine panelling and a complete 18th-century moulded wooden cornice; a 2-panel pine door of the 18th century is present. The upper storey of the rear right wing has some wide hardwood floorboards, butt-edged. Most surfaces are plastered, but in the left wall 3 studs 0.22 metres wide are visible, and in the middle of the rear wall a post 0.30 metres wide. The substantial sizes of these elements and of the one exposed jetty bracket suggest a timber-framed structure of high quality and early date. The roofs are difficult to access and were not inspected, but it is predictable that the left cross-wing originally had a crownpost roof, now altered to the present roof on a left-right axis, and that the roof of the right cross-wing has been altered to side-purlin form. The main range may have been raised, in which case it will have a roof of the 17th or 18th century. An original roof is likely in the rear right wing. Chimneys now faced with hardboard may have hearths or grates of architectural value.