23, Baldock Street

23 Baldock Street is a house that has also served as an inn and is now used as offices. It dates from the 16th and 17th centuries but was refaced in the 18th century. The building is timber-framed and features masonry lined with stucco. It has an old tiled roof with a moulded eaves cornice.

The exterior consists of two storeys with three sash windows that have glazing bars. The first-floor windows are slightly set back with concealed boxes, while the ground-floor windows are nearly flush-set with exposed boxes and moulded architraves. The entrance door is located to the right, between the right-hand pair of windows. It is a six-fielded panelled door with glazed upper panels, framed by an architrave surround and topped with a flat hood supported by cut brackets. To the left of the entrance is a carriageway with a moulded surround and an elliptical arch, featuring carved spandrels with foliage. The carriageway has twin plank doors, with a wicket door in the right-hand leaf. At the rear, there is a long outshoot that is timber-framed with plastered walls and an old tiled roof. This section has two storeys with attics and a gabled jetty beneath the attic, supported on cut consoles facing south.

Inside, the central ground-floor room features moulded beams, and there is one 18th-century moulded coving in the left-hand room. The arrangement of the mouldings suggests that the floor plan has been altered over time. The stair at the rear of the front block is not directly accessible from the yard, which is unusual for inns. The kitchen seems to have been located in the west wing. The building was recorded as a house in 1622 and as The Black Swan Inn in 1654.