20, High Street

This is a timber-framed shop and offices located on High Street, Maldon. The building has a complex history, with elements dating back to the 14th century, the 15th century, and the 16th century. It is timber-framed and rendered, with gabled plain tile roofs. The main rectangular block is accompanied by an angled wing to the rear.

The front of the building has a pitched roof, two small-paned sash windows with moulded surrounds on the first floor, and a 19th-century shop front with a large glass pane and a large, square small-paned sash window with a moulded surround on the ground floor. A rendered plinth is visible. The exposed south-west flank displays a mix of render and black weatherboarding, including a 20th-century fixed-light window, and shows an exposed post with a mortise for a jetty bracket on the north-west corner. The rear of the wing is also black weatherboarded on the gable and upper floor over render. A rendered stack sits on the north-east flank.

The interior of the north-eastern half of the main range consists of a two-bay cross-wing with jowled posts and widely spaced studs, visible on the first floor. Surviving arch braces, steeply raked and of considerable thickness, tie a main beam. A moulded girding beam, featuring a flat and hollow chamfer, is likely remnants of a former hall. This section seems to date back to the late 14th century. The south-western half of the front range is later, without prominent features, but may incorporate materials from the former hall. Behind that is a mid-16th century timber-frame, visible on the ground floor, which is a small rectangular structure with traces of two former windows on its north-west face. These windows show mortices for moulded mullions with rectangular sections, two on one side and three on the other, each incorporating a circular central mortice for a security bar. The ceiling features moulded joists and spine and bridging joists of 'pointed' sections with a flat chamfer between bowtells. On the first floor, an exposed rear tie beam and an intermediate tie beam, formerly with arch braces, are present with simple octagonal crown posts and low-mounted longitudinal bracing, suggesting a prior structure. A beam dated 1597 is mentioned in records, but is no longer visible, potentially belonging to a lost phase of construction.