5 and 7, Parliament Square

Nos. 5 and 7 Parliament Square are houses, later used as shops and offices, dating to the late 15th century (No. 7), with a 18th-century structure overbuilding part of it (No. 5). The building was altered in the 19th century and has modern shopfronts. It is timber-framed and plastered, with old tiled roofs and wide eaves featuring a moulded cornice.

No. 5 is two storeys and has attics; No. 7 is two storeys and originally a two-bay structure, likely a cross wing to a former building on the site of No. 9. The first floor of No. 7 has two flush-set 19th-century sash windows with plain glazing and architrave surrounds. A single 19th-century sash window with divided glazing is set lower in the gable end of No. 7. The ground floor of No. 5 has a 19th-century shopfront with a central recessed doorway, a half-glazed door, plate glass display windows in timber frames, and a pilaster surround surmounted by moulded consoles flanking the fascia, with a cornice/blind box below the first-floor window sills. The shopfront of No. 7 is recessed beneath a jettied first floor, with a recessed door at the left and a timber-framed closed window, flanked by pilasters and a fascia fixed to a bressumer. No. 5 has a single gabled casement dormer; the gable of No. 7 faces the street.

At the rear, No. 5 has a long, two-storeyed outshoot, timber-framed and plastered with an old tiled roof. The interior of the outshoot reveals exposed studs and two rooms with a central chimney stack. No. 7’s first floor has exposed studs indicating a two-bay structure, with a ceiling at collar level, and no access to the roof structure.