115-117, BELL COMMON

This is a house, dating from circa 1600, with later alterations and extensions. It has a timber frame with weatherboarding, and an old tile roof with gabled and hipped sections, topped by a brick ridge stack. Originally a two-unit plan with a central lobby entrance, it was extended in the 18th century to create three units. The house is one storey and attic in height, with a four-window front. It features 20th-century one and two-light windows, a large gabled dormer, and a 20th-century entrance to the rear. The right-hand side wall was rebuilt in brick following a fire after 1947, and there are mid-20th-century extensions to the rear, along with an 18th-century outshut on the left. Internally, the exposed timber frame shows arched wall bracing and a clasped purlin roof, with curved windbraces to the bay on the right of the stack. A closed truss and stud partition divides the right side of that bay. A room to the left has an ogee-stopped chamfered beam and a 19th-century staircase leading to the first floor; a stop-chamfered beam is located to the right of the stack. The later bay to the right was gutted after the 1947 fire.