8, 8a and 8b Market Place

Former townhouse, built around 1770, the front range added around 1780, partly converted to a shop by the early C19, then back to a private dwelling in the late C19. Used as an office in the 1950s, and then converted to a shop in the 1960s. In around 2017 the ground floor was subdivided into two retail units and a maisonette was created on the upper floors.

MATERIALS: of red brick, rendered and whitewashed to the principal east elevation, with a pantile roof and brick stacks.

PLAN: of a double-pile plan.

EXTERIOR: of two storeys in five bays with a dormer attic, the centre of the ground floor has double-glazed doors flanked on each side by plate-glass display windows, all of late-C20 date. On the first floor, there are five six-over-six unhorned sashes, of which the three centre windows are slightly shallower than the end bay windows. The attic has three gabled dormers with three-over-three sashes, all installed in around 2017 as replacements for original dormers removed in the mid- to late C20. The double-pile roofs have internal gable-end stacks to the north and south. The left-hand return has an early-C21 plate glass door to the ground floor, a first-floor platband and two punched octagonal recesses in the gable head, that to the right-hand side (east) with a sundial gnomon. The rear range has C20 windows.

INTERIOR: the ground floor has been opened into an open-plan retail area.