43 And 45, Benington Road

Nos 43 and 45 Benington Road are two houses that were originally a single house built in the mid to late 16th century, with fittings from the 17th and early 18th centuries. The structure features a timber frame on a painted brick sill, with plastered walls and a steep old red tile roof. It is two stories tall with attics, designed in a two-cell layout with a central chimney, and originally had a lobby entrance facing west. The front is symmetrical, featuring two shallow rectangular bay windows on the ground floor, a small central upper window, and two four-panel doors next to the bay windows. There is a slated and plastered lean-to on the left-hand (north) end, with weatherboarding on the gable. The central chimney is cruciform and plastered.

Inside, the house has axial beams and a bolection-moulded fire surround in the south room on the first floor, along with two early 18th-century surrounds on the ground floor. The clasped purlin roof includes butt purlins for a dormer window over the bays, and straight wind braces are present in the rear slope. The unheated first-floor north chamber features a painted scheme from the early 17th century, which aligns with dated examples from 1605 found in Hertfordshire. This room has four painted walls adorned with elaborate Jacobean strapwork panelling, including stiles, rails, arabesques, and diamonds, in colours of yellow, dark red, pale red, and black outline. An upper frieze contains partly decipherable texts, possibly of a pious nature, which may be from a common source book similar to those at Pirton Grange in Hertfordshire. The house is listed at Grade II* for its potentially complete decorative scheme within an otherwise modern setting.