20 London Street

A mid-C19 house and shop.

MATERIALS: the building is constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond and the pitched roof is covered in pantiles.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation faces east on to London Street. It is three bays wide and two storeys high with a pitched roof covered in black-glazed pantiles. Close to the ridge, off-centre, there is a small skylight. There is a shallow eaves cornice. At each end of the roof ridge is a brick-built chimney.

The ground floor has a late-C19 shop front in the larger southern bay, at each end of which there are consoles on either end of a shallow frieze. The shop front is in three parts: at the left-hand side is a canted bay window with a large plate glass pane at the centre, and slim clerestory lights above. At the base of the bay window is an elaborate cast-iron grille. At the centre of the shop front is a blocked doorway. On the right-hand side is a further doorway, this with a half-glazed door, panelled reveals, and a six-vaned metal fan-light. The two northern bays each have a six-over-six unhorned sash window with concealed boxes, and along the whole base of the ground floor is a flint rubble plinth (now painted).

At the first floor, there are six-over-six unhorned sash windows with concealed boxes in each of the three bays.

There is a rear wing built of flint with brick dressings.

INTERIOR: the building was first listed in 1973 and its List entry was amended in 1996. Those earlier List entries describe a ‘C19 staircase with bobbin-turned balusters’ without any further description of interior features.