63 and 63a, High Street

This house and shop, located at 63 and 63A High Street, Maldon, was built around 1770. It is a timber-framed building, now rendered, with a half-hipped gambrel roof to the main block and a double range of parallel roofs to the rear, all covered in plain tiles.

The main elevation faces northwest toward the Plume Library. It has three segmental-headed dormers with margin glazing. The first floor features a tripartite sash window with margin glazing on either side of a conventional margin-glazed sash. The exterior is faced with ashlar and coarse-textured plaster. The ground floor mirrors the first with a tripartite sash window, and a central open-pedimented Tuscan doorcase with a semicircular fanlight, panelled pilasters, and a pulvinated frieze. The six-panel door has four raised-and-fielded panels over two flush panels. A cellar opening with cast-iron bars is set into the plinth. A southwest corner entrance leads through the Plume Library's boundary wall to a private garden, accessible by three stone steps. The High Street elevation has a small attic sash window, a two-story canted bay with a flat roof and margin-glazed sashes, and single sash windows with moulded surrounds on each floor.

The south-east elevation which faces an alleyway, has two eaves lines, and the upper part of the staircase rises as a tower to the attic level with a hipped tile roof. This tower features two margin-glazed sash windows. The shop entrance has a tall square fanlight over a six-panel door with two glazed lights over two moulded panels and two flush panels, along with two small horizontal windows, a 19th-century two-light casement, a cellar light, and a cellar entrance. The rear, northeast-facing part of the building has a lower eaves line and is clad in white weatherboarding. It includes a canted oriel window from the 19th century with paired plain sashes and decorative brackets. A door with a hood on consoles, has small 20th-century panes, along with a small-pane tripartite sash. The alleyway is paved with grey stable blocks.

The interior retains late 18th-century character, featuring an entrance hall with an Adamesque cornice and a wide arch on pilasters. The staircase is a curved dogleg well stair with turned balusters, a hardwood handrail, shaped tread ends, and rises to the attics. Rooms have various contemporary cornices, and numerous late 18th-century doors and architraves. One first-floor room has a ceiling with reeded bands. A particularly fine early 19th-century corner cupboard includes doors, semicircular-arched heads on pilasters, and curved shelves.

The building was reputedly constructed around 1770 for Edward Bright, a grocer known for his considerable size.