9 and 11, Stortford Road

This building comprises shops and offices, originally a house, dating to the late 16th century, with alterations made in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It is a three-storey structure with a timber frame and plastered exterior, covered by a hipped slate roof with wide eaves. The front elevation features three square double-hung sash windows on the top floor, with small panes and moulded surrounds. The second floor has a projecting oriel window bay with double-hung sashes, margin glazing bars, a hipped roof, and a coved soffit. Flanking the oriel are further double-hung sashes with small panes. On the ground floor, a late 19th-century butcher’s shop window with a hood extends from the east end and around the corner, alongside a corner entrance featuring cast iron brackets with pierced anthemium and scroll details. The centre of the ground floor contains two large 20th-century shop windows with small panes. A doorcase from the early 19th century has flat, fluted Doric pilasters supporting a wide flat hood and frieze panel, with oval panels containing lions' heads above the pilasters. The fanlight above the original door consists of one horizontal glazed panel over four moulded vertical panels. The rear of the building includes a two-storey block constructed of concrete with a plain tile, gabled weatherboarded exterior, a single-storey peg tile gable outbuilding, and a large slated rear lean-to. Internally, remnants of the late 16th-century timber frame survive, along with a 17th-century timber framed two-storey block at the rear. This section contains posts with moulded impost detail. There is also a good mid-18th-century painted panelled room on the first floor, featuring a dentilled cornice and overdoor friezes.