The Old Bakery

The Old Bakery is a house and ancillary buildings located on Purleigh Street, dating from the early 18th century, with extensions added in the early 19th century. The main structure is timber framed, featuring sections that are plastered, tile-hung, and clad with red brick in Flemish bond, topped with a roof of handmade red clay tiles. The ancillary buildings are weatherboarded with a slate roof and also constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, similarly roofed with handmade red clay tiles.

The main building consists of three bays facing south with a central stack, originally designed with a lobby entrance that is now blocked. An additional bay was added to the right, along with a parallel range at the rear and a rear stack during the early 19th century. To the right, there is a 19th-century brick stable block that has been converted into a bakehouse; it was originally freestanding but later connected to the house by a weatherboarded link.

The building has two storeys and features a three-window range of early 19th-century sashes with 12 lights, made with crown glass. The front elevation is adorned with plain and convex-edged tiles. The right side of the building is brick, with an early 19th-century sash of 16 lights on the ground floor and another sash of 12 lights on the first floor. There is a flush four-panel door on the right return. Inside, there are two wood-burning hearths that have been reduced for 20th-century grates, along with chamfered transverse beams.

The stable block includes one 20th-century casement window on the ground floor, and on the first floor, there is one 19th-century casement and one blocked window aperture, along with a halved door. Notably, it contains a coal-fired side-flue baker's oven, dating from around 1890, which was in commercial use until 1959.