39 and 41 Market Place

Former townhouse, built around 1730-1740 on the site of an early-C16 house, remodelled in the C19 with two shops created on the ground floor and living accommodation above. New shopfronts were installed to number 39 in the mid-C20 and number 41 in the late C20.

MATERIALS: of red brick in Flemish bond with brick stacks and roof of black-glazed pantiles.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation to Market Place is of two storeys with a dormer attic in seven bays, with number 39 comprising four bay and number 41 three bays. On the ground floor, number 39 is spanned by a neoclassical shopfront in which the bays are defined by four engaged Roman Doric columns supporting a plain entablature with a modillioned cornice. From left to right, the first bay has a six-panelled passageway door with a square-paned fanlight, the second bay has a three-panelled double-leaf door and third and fourth bays have a multi-pane display window above a panelled stallriser. The three right-hand bays (number 41) have been merged and contain a late-C20 shopfront with a plate-glass display window and door. On the first floor there are seven six-over-six unhorned sashes with stone sills and gauged skewback brick arches. Above is a timber eaves cornice with modillions. The gabled roof has two flat-topped dormers separated by a gabled dormer; the two left-hand dormers having three-over-three unhorned sashes while the other is blind and painted in imitation. The off-centre right ridge stack and internal gable-end stack to the west have both been rebuilt.

INTERIOR: the passageway to left-hand side has roll and hollow-moulded joists and wall plates, probably dating to around 1500. The ground floor was opened out and subdivided in the C20 as two retail units, but the cornices remain. On the first floor, the centre room has moulded cornices, two blocked doorways into the adjoining property (number 41), and large-framed panelling on the north wall, partly boarded over. To the attic storey there is a C18 closed-string staircase with turned balusters and moulded handrail.