44/44A AND 46, HIGH STREET

The building comprises a house, now a shop and house, dating to the 17th century or earlier, with alterations in the 18th century and the early to mid-19th century. The front of number 44 has an 18th-century brick facade, while number 46 features a similar brick front with a shopfront, and a gabled rear wing from the early to mid-19th century. The original timber frame is visible at the rear. The main fabric is red brick in Flemish bond, with number 44 using a red Flemish bond and number 46 using a plum brick bond. The roofs are covered in steep old red tiles. Originally a three-cell, two-storey house facing east, it features a large internal chimney located a third from the south end. A late 18th-century external north gable chimney serves only the ground floor. A two-storey gabled rear wing to the southwest has an internal west gable chimney. The east front is divided into two sections: the northern two-thirds (numbers 44/44A) are symmetrical, with two windows on each floor and a recessed doorway in the middle. It has replacement box sash windows with 2/2 panes, flat-gauged arches over the ground-floor windows, and a six-panel door with the lower two panels flush and beaded, the middle two moulded, and the top two glazed. The door is set within a heavy moulded surround, featuring an entablature, a fluted trygliph frieze, a moulded flat hood, and a cast-iron boot-scraper beside the door. The southern section (number 46) is narrower, with a brick eaves cornice and a single recessed sash window with 8/8 panes and a stone lintel on the first floor, above a neat shopfront with pilasters, a fascia, a dentilled cornice, and a half-glazed door in the left-hand panel, with fretwork above the window. A catslide rear outshut extends to the north, interrupted by a parallel, low-roofed rear block.