The Anchor Public House

The Anchor Public House is a building that originated as a house, dating from the 16th century or earlier, with alterations made in the early 17th century, 18th century, and early 19th century. It features a timber frame that is plastered and lined to resemble ashlar, with roughcast on the north gable and rear, and painted brick extensions at the back. The building has a painted brick plinth and a very steep red tile roof.

Originally an H-plan former hall-house facing east, the ground floor is lower in the two-storey crosswings. An inserted floor in the hall from the early 17th century includes a central chimney likely located in the cross-passage, with a staircase positioned at the rear of the stack. During the same period, the side walls of the hall were heightened, and a new steep pitched roof was constructed, extending over the crosswings and sloping lower over their front projections, featuring deep eaves overhang at the rear. The roof over the center was reconstructed in the 18th century, but curved wind-braces to the purlins of the older roof remain over the crosswing.

The front of the building, which faces the road, is two storeys high and consists of three windows but is structured in four bays, with the end bays projecting. The first floor has flush box sash windows with 6/6 panes. On the ground floor, there is a small paned Yorkshire sliding casement window in the right-hand projection, a half-glazed panelled door in the left part of the center, flanked by projecting canted bay windows on each side. The bay on the right features small paned casements, while the left bay has sash windows with 4/4:10/10:4/4 small panes. These bays are roofed and connected by a lean-to tiled porch with an open front supported by two posts and a small central gable.

Internally, there is a gable chimney at the south end and a rear lateral chimney in the north wing, which appear to be 18th or 19th-century additions. The interior showcases heavy flat-laid joists exposed in the rear part of the south wing on the ground floor, and jowled posts from the former central hall on the first floor. The floor in the middle part of the ground floor has likely been raised to match the level of the abutments of a new bridge built between 1824 and 1825.