1, 3 & 5 Park Street

This house was built in the third quarter of the 17th century, very likely originating as an inn. It was subsequently used as a dwelling by the early 19th century, converted into shops by the late 19th century, and then into offices in the late 20th century.

Materials

The building has a timber frame set on a flint basement, with either an original or later 17th-century brick façade now covered in early 20th-century roughcast render. The lower frame has been partly replaced. The roof is covered in plain tiles.

Plan

The building faces east onto Park Street and has a long rectangular plan. The principal range consists of a central chimney with a staircase behind, with a room to the north and south. A south cross-wing completes the original 17th-century building. The original north external wall was removed to accommodate an early 19th-century extension.

Exterior

The building has two storeys under a steeply pitched roof. The south cross-wing at the left end projects slightly under a hipped roof. A tall mid-17th-century red brick chimney stack with six square joined shafts rises from the ridge in the centre of the main range. On the left-hand side of the main range, the first-floor wall surface is slightly raised, suggesting a string course or plat-band typical of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

The window arrangement is asymmetrical, consisting of five two-over-two pane sash windows on each floor. Almost all were replaced in 1975. The three windows to the right at ground-floor level replaced earlier shop fronts. The entrance to the left retains late 18th or early 19th-century shaped brackets supporting a flat hood, although the door itself is 20th century. A single bay at the northern end of the range is under a mono-pitch roof and contains a 19th-century door and a casement window above.

The south cross-wing is dominated by a corner shop-front with full-height plate glass display windows on each elevation. The fascia has been removed, but the shaped and reeded brackets at each end indicate late 19th-century origins, although the windows and double doors are 20th century. The doorway is flanked by large wooden Tuscan columns which are likely to have supported a former projecting hood or doorcase before being repositioned to form the shop-front. The first floor of the cross-wing is lit on the front and return by two sash windows.

The rear (west) elevation is faced in red brick, although it is possible that the timber frame of the cross-wing is actually faced in mathematical tiling. To the left is the projecting stair turret, followed by a Crittall-style window in a 19th-century cambered arch window surround. Adjoining the south-west corner of the building is a pair of Victorian chamfered gate piers of red brick with decorative iron gates.

Interior

The interior has been greatly altered over the years as a result of numerous changes of use and destructive restoration carried out in the 1970s. Nevertheless, it retains a number of historic fixtures and fittings, of which the wall paintings are the most significant.

Ground Floor

The substantial central chimney has openings in the flanking rooms to the north and south. In the southern room, the original 17th-century brick survives at the back of the fireplace, including traces of a blocked bread oven. However, due to a fracture in the timber bressumer (strengthened by early riveted iron straps), the brick jambs have been rebuilt and a central brick pier added in the 20th century. In the room to the north, the fireplace has a wide chamfered timber bressumer supported by original chamfered brick jambs. A small cupboard door with butterfly hinges survives on one side. A Victorian cast iron stanchion supports a boarded joist which probably conceals an original beam.

The late 17th-century open well oak staircase has a closed string and slender turned balusters supporting a handrail of fairly flat profile with square newels. These rise to shaped caps which clearly had ball finials, since sawn off. The walls retain historic plaster. To the north of the stair is a small storage cupboard with boarded shelves and 17th or 18th-century metal hooks, and a ledged and braced door hung on pintles with large strap hinges and a ventilation lattice.

The south cross-wing is one single space, formerly occupied by a shop, retaining a few wall posts, two joists, and early lime plaster on the ceiling.

First Floor

The landing is laid in wide oak floorboards. Doorways leading to rooms on the west, east, and north sides retain 18th-century architraves, although the doors themselves do not survive.

To the south of the central chimney stack, what was originally one room with a unified decorative scheme was partitioned along the western side to form a corridor in the early 18th century. This, along with the room, has square panelling along the bottom half of the wall with a shelf-like dado and historic plasterwork above, as well as wide pine floorboards of 18th-century date. The room is lit by two 19th-century windows with shallow seats. To the right of the chimney breast is a small closet with a two-panelled 17th-century door with H-hinges, a common arrangement during this period. At the northern end of the corridor, a thin 18th-century two-panelled door with HL hinges leads into a small cupboard on the left side of the chimney breast.

During the 2019 conversion, a wall painting was discovered on the west wall of the corridor (which originally formed the external wall), preserved beneath later fabric. The scheme is painted onto a probable lath and plaster base and covers the entire wall, covering a total of 5.7 metres in length by 2.6 metres in height. The lower part is obscured by late 17th or early 18th-century panelling, but the small area exposed shows that it is in excellent condition. The finely executed scheme reflects the 'grotesque' ornamentation of the late 16th or early 17th century, depicting a large chimera-type creature with a lion's head and abstract scrollwork emerging from its mane. Adjoining it to the right is a classical column, rendered with mouldings, an emerald green boss, and draped textile festoons at the head. The background is white with a pattern of black dots.

The room to the north of the central chimney also has wide floorboards and a small cupboard with L-hinges adjoining the chimney breast. The two east windows date to the 19th century, one of which has a low seat. The most notable feature on the front and side of the chimney breast, and extending across the top of the closet door, are traces of wall painting, also discovered in 2019. Though mostly masked beneath many layers of limewash and paint, some distinguishing features can be observed, including a central decorative device above the fire with curled decoration on each side, and patterned stripes. Initial consultation suggests that these are characteristic of a late 17th-century imitation textile scheme.

The south cross-wing forms a single panelled room of high status. The panelling, which mostly survives, is divided by a dado into a short panel below and a taller panel above—proportions typical of the late 17th or early 18th century. The ceiling has a heavy box cornice and the floor is laid in wide boards of probable 17th-century date, under which the original floor structure with two heavy principal joists remains in place. The east windows have panelled seats. Traces of early paintwork of a dark grey colour have been revealed on the panelling by the stripping away of later lining papers.

Roof

The well-constructed 17th-century roof over the principal range is divided into three bays by queen-post trusses with staggered butt-purlins. The east pitch appears to be largely intact, but the majority of the rafters on the west pitch have been replaced.

Cellar

The cellar, which lies beneath the principal historic range, is now accessed via a modern stair at the front of the building but was originally entered from the main stair via solid brick treads with timber tread-ends, which partly survive. The southern end of the cellar retains early brick flooring and walls of uncoursed flintwork, partly rebuilt in 18th or 19th-century brick.