Numbers 40 And 42 Including The Apothecarys House

Nos. 40 and 42 including The Apothecary's House, High Street, Maldon

Shops and offices comprising three adjoining structures of different periods. The principal range dates from the early and late 18th century, with an early 19th-century rear block. The buildings are constructed of brick with plain tile roofs.

The main front elevation is three storeys tall, presenting a symmetrical five-window range in red Flemish-bond brickwork with the centre section breaking forward slightly and finished with a moulded brick cornice. The roof is hipped at the corners behind a parapet. The second floor contains a small-paned Diocletian window under a rubbed brick arch, flanked to the left by two 12-pane sash windows with flush moulded boxes under rubbed brick flat arches, and to the right by two similar sash windows but with a single vertical glazing bar. The first floor features a central Venetian window with small-paned glazing, two deeper sashes to the left with similar detailing, and to the right two canted oriels with hipped plain tile roofs and sashes. The ground floor has a 20th-century colonnade of eight Doric columns (coupled either side of the centre) with an entablature of triglyphs. The recessed 20th-century shop front is of metal with a continuous fascia and brick stall-risers.

The west flank elevation has a plain tile roof returning behind the fascia and three 12-pane sashes on the second floor. The first floor contains one 8-pane sash window and a canted oriel with a flat lead roof and black weatherboarded base. The ground floor has two infilled windows with linked arched heads and a double recessed door in an old, reduced opening. The east flank has one 12-pane sash window on the second floor and a square oriel with a 12-pane sash on the first floor. A bridge structure linking with No. 44 (not included in the listing) has a north elevation of painted weatherboarding with a 9-pane sash and a Welsh slate lean-to roof.

The early 18th-century Apothecary's House, now largely incorporated within 20th-century rear shop extensions, has its front (east) elevation exposed. It is two storeys tall with a four-window range in red Flemish-bond brickwork with some grey headers. The first floor has four 20th-century sash windows with central vertical glazing bars under rubbed brick segmental heads and a central narrow blind recessed panel. The ground floor contains three similar windows, a narrow blind recess, and a 20th-century door surround with hood. The west elevation facing an alley is largely two storeys of Flemish-bond brick but features a rendered stair tower with a hipped plain tile roof and a 9-pane sash. The roof is steeply pitched in plain tiles with a gable and a large stack to the south. The ground floor has a 9-pane sash window and a 20th-century door surround with a flat hood on consoles within an old opening, with a recessed brick panel above.

A three-storey early 19th-century rear block, which partly spans over the eastern alley, has a hipped Welsh slate roof behind a parapet. Its south elevation has on the second floor one 9-pane sash, a blank recessed panel, and one 16-pane sash, all under rubbed brick flat arches. The first floor contains three 16-pane sashes.

The interior of the front range is largely 20th-century, though a staircase to the rear retains shaped tread ends, stick balusters, and a hardwood handrail. The interior of the early 19th-century rear block includes a first-floor room with moulded skirting and shutters flanking the window openings. The first-floor room of the Apothecary's House retains mid-18th-century panelling with a dentilled cornice above a former fireplace and a small fireplace with a shouldered architrave.