3, St Andrew Street

This is a timber-framed hall house, dating back to around 1500, with a later 16th-century south wing. It was altered in the 18th and 19th centuries and restored in 1976. The building is now used as a restaurant with offices above. It has a clay tile roof and two brick chimneys - one on the ridge line and another against the rear wall of the front range. Originally, it was built as a single-ended Wealden house with a two-bay front, the right (west) bay serving as the hall, and a three-bay, two-storey outshut was added to the rear in the late 16th century when the hall was floored.

The front elevation has two sash windows on the first floor, with 12 and 16 panes respectively. On the ground floor, there is a recessed entry at the left, with a restored 19th-century shopfront extending across the front, which obscures the jettied first floor. The shopfront features hardwood framed plate glass windows, recessed double doors with three-quarter glazed panels, a green tile stallriser, pilaster surrounds, a deep fascia, and cornices flanked by moulded consoles. The rear of the building has a long two-storey outshut, with a single-storey 20th-century pantile-roofed extension beyond.

The interior of the ground floor restaurant has exposed ceiling beams. A staircase provides access to the first floor from an alleyway, passing by an inserted fireplace in the service bay. The first floor reveals exposed studwork separating the solar from the upper part of the hall. There is downward curved bracing, with cut marks where a central door was inserted following the floor’s construction. The original stud work that housed the recessed first floor (upper wall of the hall) is still visible. The roof retains a crown post structure, with fore and aft bracing to the collar purlin, halved and pegged rafters and collars; the lack of smoke blackening suggests the hall and solar were not heated. The three-bay rear outshut is now open on the first floor, above restaurant kitchens on the ground floor. There are partly braced tie beams, and 3- and 4-light diamond mullion windows with grooves for shutters. A fireplace in the far south-west corner of the outshut was removed during the 1976 restoration.