177 AND 179, HIGH STREET

This building comprises shops with residential accommodation above, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, with a front facade dating from the early 19th century. It is timber-framed with a rendered brick front and a gabled roof covered in plain tiles. The exterior is two storeys with an attic, featuring a four-window front. The majority of the frontage is rendered brick with a parapet, which is pebbledashed at No. 177. There are three dormers, two gabled with 12-pane sash windows and one segmental-headed dormer. No. 177, on the west side, has two recessed panels in the parapet and two margin-glazed sash windows with segmental heads on the first floor. Its ground floor has a modern hardwood shop front with fluted pilasters at the entrance, and a perspex fascia. The central section (No. 179) has a recessed panel in the parapet and a sash window with a single vertical glazing bar and segmental head on the first floor. The ground floor has a modern shop front with eight large panes, a modern entrance door, and a painted timber fascia. The eastern end of the frontage is rendered without a parapet, and has a 12-pane flush sash window above a modern part-glazed entrance door. To the rear is a later parallel two-storey range of rendered timber framing with a plain tile roof. Behind this are a modern Welsh-slate roofed lean-to and a two-storey, flat-roofed extension.

The interior of the central section of the block reveals a formerly jettied service-end cross-wing likely dating from the 16th century. This retains jowled posts and evidence of a central partition. To the northwest of this (No. 177) is a two-bay structure of the late 16th or early 17th century, with stop-chamfered girding beams with run-out stops. It was later extended to the southwest and re-roofed with side purlins parallel to the street.