41 And 43, High Street

This is a house, now two shops, dating from the early 16th century, with alterations made in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is timber-framed, with a facade of painted red brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern. The rest of the building is plastered and weatherboarded, and has a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The main range has three bays facing northwest, with an original 16th-century axial stack at the left end and an 18th/19th-century stack at the right end of the middle bay. A two-bay wing extends obliquely to the rear left of the main range’s left bay, with an 18th/19th-century internal stack at the rear left, and a single-storey extension beyond. A 19th-century single-storey lean-to has been added to the rear, with a slate roof.

Number 41 has two late 19th-century sash windows on the ground floor, each with four lights. The first floor has two early 19th-century sashes, one with 10+10 lights and the other with 6+6 lights. Disturbed brickwork is visible above the ground-floor windows. There is a 19th-century half-glazed door and one stone step. Number 43 features an early 19th-century bow shop window with 24 lights, including simple pilasters, a fascia, and a moulded cornice, with some crown glass. The first floor has an early 19th-century sash window with 6+6 lights, and a 19th-century half-glazed door, accessed by one stone step on brick. A plain band runs across the full width of the facade just below the first-floor windows. The eaves have a moulded cornice, and there are two courses of slates at the front of the roof. The ridge of Number 43 is slightly higher than that of Number 41. A 19th-century horizontal sash window with 6+6 lights is located on the first floor of the left return. The rear wing has an early 19th-century top-hung casement window with six lights on the first floor, and an early 19th-century horizontal sash window with 6+6 lights at the gable end.

Inside Number 41, there are chamfered transverse and axial beams, and chamfered joists with step stops, all which have been sand-blasted and limed. On the upper floor, all surfaces are plastered, except for a section of the rear wall within the rear wing, which shows close studding and a curved brace trenched to the outside, an incomplete unglazed window, and a severed wallplate. This section of wall has been raised approximately 0.75 meters above the wallplate in the 18th or early 19th century. The roofs of the left and middle bays were likely built during this period, while the roof in the right bay (Number 43) may be original, and is plastered to the rafters with no access. Inside Number 43, the exposed beams are similar, with plastered joists, there is also an internal six-panel door, the top two panels glazed.