52 And 52A, High Street

This is a late 16th century and mid-18th century house, now used as shops, offices, and a flat. The front of the building is pinkish-red Flemish-bond brick with decorative brick details, while the roofs are tiled and the rear walls are rendered and pebbledashed.

The building is three storeys high and has a five-window front. A plain parapet tops the front elevation, and a brick string band sits below it, supported by two downward-tapering, fluted brick pilasters. The second floor has five flush, margin-glazed sash windows with an extra central vertical glazing bar and rubbed brick flat arches. The brickwork of this storey is slightly pinker than that of the floor below. The first floor is topped with moulded brick bases and capitals, and features five deeper sash windows, each with a brick apron featuring soffit mutules. The ground floor incorporates a central, pedimented doorcase with short attached Tuscan columns on pedestals, set against a rusticated stucco backing with a flat arch and triple keystone. A 20th-century shop front has an interrupted fascia and piers of rusticated stucco, containing four openings, three with small-paned windows.

The rear elevation reveals a parallel two-storey range with a plain tile gambrel roof and plain parapet. A two-storey timber-framed block, with a gabled plain tile roof, projects at right angles, and has a further storey with a gabled plain tile roof and an end stack interrupting the rear gambrel-roofed part. The rear of this section is pebbledashed and has a flat-roofed dormer and a 12-pane sash window on its first floor. Large 20th-century extensions have been added to the rear.

Inside, the first floor of the front range has a room on the western end with mid-18th century panelling, a dentil cornice, and a fireplace with a shouldered architrave and a broken pedimented overmantel with a shouldered and eared architrave. All first-floor front windows have folding shutters in their reveals. Other areas of the front range retain dado and skirting, plus some original doors and architraves. The second floor, now a flat, has some original raised-and-fielded panelled doors. The rear range, projecting at right angles, features late 16th-century timber framing with jowled posts, originally comprising three bays with an attic storey and A-frame roof trusses. The floor levels have since been altered. A small, extra bay at the southern end also has jowled posts and a ceiled upper section.