The Old Custom House

The Old Custom House is a house, originally serving as a custom house, dating to the late 16th century, with alterations and additions in the early 18th and early 19th centuries. The front is timber-framed and rendered, faced with grey/blue header brick with red brick dressings, while the roof is tiled and features front range hip sections leading to a taller rear range. A tall stack runs through the front half of the roof, and there is a T-shaped rendered stack at the south-east end.

The two-storey building has a five-window front. It features two gabled dormers, each with a 2-light casement of horizontal panes. A parapet includes four wide and one narrow sunk rectangular panel. The first floor has a central, narrow flush sash window with a segmental head and two wider similar windows either side, all with plain sashes. The ground floor has a central doorcase with fluted Doric pilasters, a flat hood, and a six-panel door with two glazed panels over four raised-and-fielded panels, accessed via four stone steps and wrought-iron handrails. Two sash windows are positioned on each side of the main entrance. The rear elevation presents two projecting wings. The south-east wing is a tall, rendered block with a steep, gambrel roof, incorporating a 16-pane sash in the gable and a smaller tripartite sash to the first floor, alongside a wide, flat-roofed bay window with small panes on the ground floor. The north-east wing is a lower, rendered extension with a gabled roof and a large rendered stack base near where it joins the front range. This wing has a 16-pane sash in the upper part of the south-east elevation and a plain sash on its exposed flank.

The front range retains elements of a late 16th century two-storey timber-framed house, originally featuring a roof constructed with wind-braced clasped-purlins. An exposed north-east wall reveals remnants of diamond-mullioned windows to the attic, first, and ground floors. A contemporary, or slightly later, stack with a chamfered-arched fireplace to the first floor is also visible on the rear wall. The north-eastern rear extension has an A-frame roof with high collars and curved braces between principals and collar, a design similar to that found at No.4 Silver Street. In the attic of the front range’s south-west end stands the base of a late 16th century stack, featuring two octagonal shafts with moulded bases. An early 18th century raising of the roof incorporated reused materials. The inside face of the front wall displays original early 18th century detail, with a cornice projecting over the windows in the north-east room. The central entrance hall features early 19th century panelling, a dogleg staircase with barleysugar balusters (partly renewed), and arched openings on the first-floor landing with moulded capitals and pilasters. The south-west front room has early 18th century pine panelling. The early 19th century rear wing includes contemporary fireplaces on the ground and first floors, and one first-floor room has a window with vertical sliding shutters. The ground-floor bay window is flanked by reeded pilasters.