19, High Street

No. 19 High Street is a house and shop, now used as offices, dating from the 15th century and early 19th century. It features a timber-framed structure with a yellow gault brick front and a roof made of plain tiles, hipped at the northern end behind a parapet. The building has two storeys. On the first floor, there are two double-hung sash windows, each with gault flat arches, and an additional double-hung sash window that has one vertical glazing bar and a red brick rubbed brick arch. The ground floor includes a central rebuilt doorcase with pilasters and a flat hood, along with 20th-century shop fronts. There is access to a rear yard at the southern end of the facade, which has a rendered flat arch above it. The rear features 20th-century extensions in the yard and remnants of timber-framed buildings incorporated into the yard walls to the southwest. The back of the 15th-century rear wing is encased in red brickwork. Originally, this was a 15th-century hall-house with a single formerly gabled and jettied cross-wing at the northern end, consisting of four bays with an integral service cross passage that extended to the rear as an open-sided arcade to a courtyard, similar to the Swan Public House in Maldon, Essex. The front room was adapted as a shop, while the room behind it, which has fragmentary wall paintings, was formerly the parlour. There is evidence of a former spered wall to the hall, which has an inserted 16th-century floor and was raised in height in the 17th century. The cross-wing features a simple crown-post roof, making this an interesting example of an urban plan designed to maximize a restricted site.