33, Bridge Street

House, formerly listed together with No. 31 as a single property but now a separate building. Built in the mid-16th century, with later additions. Timber-framed and brick construction, comprising a two-storey section with a single-storey range, featuring plastered walls and partial jettying beneath a run of peg-tiled roofs. The plan is essentially rectangular. Two red brick stacks date from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

The building occupies a curved street site on Bridge Street, with its eastern front elevation showing a jettied unit to the south containing a large late 16th-century stack at its southern end, and a plain range to the north that sets back and drops from two storeys to one storey at the centre, above the site of a prominent early 17th-century red brick stack. The ground floor to the south is now largely brick, having replaced timber framing where the house has subsided below street level. The single-storey northern unit has one two-light casement window. Below the jetty is a 20th-century canted bay window with five fixed lights and leaded panes. At the southern end, on the facade of No. 31, is a 20th-century top-hung casement window with 2x2 panes. The first-floor section features plaster work with remnants of panelled pargetting decorated with circular combed ornament in the late 18th-century manner. A late 18th-century sliding-sash window with moulded architrave is present. The jettied unit has a three-light casement window with leaded latticed and rectangular panes, the central light being older than the flanking lights. At the southern end of the No. 31 facade is a two-light late 18th-century window with metal casements, one fixed and one hinged, with the roof hipping back to the road curvature and a heavy 16th-century stack above.

The western rear elevation mirrors the front arrangement of units. Lath and plaster work is currently being renewed. Fenestration is irregular. A prominent 17th-century stack between the single and two-storeyed units has a stepped lower outer edge. The ground floor of the single-storey northern unit is brick with a boarded 20th-century door and two windows of circa 1800, featuring sashes with glazing bars in a 4x4 pane configuration. The two-storey unit has a 20th-century fully glazed French window with glazing bars and 4x5 panes, a 20th-century door with upper glazing of 2x2 panes and three lower sunk panels, a restored medieval two-light mullioned window now fitted with leaded panes, and a 20th-century sash window with 4x4 panes. The first floor features a 20th-century double casement window with 4x4 panes, a circa 1800 sliding-sash window with 4x4 panes, a restored two-light mullioned window, and a circa 1800 sash window with glazing bars in a 4x4 configuration. The northern end elevation comprises a single-storey block with one light casement window, behind which stands a prominent 17th-century stack.

Interior: The building represents a succession of linear additions proceeding chronologically from south to north. The southern bay contains a skewed end wall facing No. 31, with a large mid-16th-century fireplace on the ground floor featuring well-preserved herringbone brickwork at the fire-back. Although replaced by the bay window facing the street, restored frieze lights with roll-moulded mullions remain to either side, and evidence survives of the site of a large central window in a tripartite system. The room also contains a line of low pegs across the partition facing the fire, evidently for an original bench seat. The unit to the north has similar large pegs in its northern partition frame, set higher and arranged in rows, probably for a 17th-century warping frame for weaving. The northern fireplace of the two-storey block retains its original lintel, though the brickwork was renewed in the 20th century. The front wall of the three northern bays was rebuilt in 18th-century red brick. First-floor framing is largely concealed, though stout tension-braced framing is partly visible.

The southern end of the house was added in the 16th century to the northern end of the solar bay of the adjacent Wealden-type house (No. 31), creating a new dwelling containing the parlour (No. 31) and hall (No. 33) with a new massive stack between them featuring back-to-back fireplaces and an accompanying rear stair tower (No. 31). A further 17th-century addition extends to the northern end and terminates at the stack. A final single-storey brick addition dates to circa 1800 and completes the range.