Beech House

Beech House is a house, now incorporating offices, with a complex history of construction spanning the 18th and 19th centuries and early 20th century. The front range, built in 1873, faces the street and is constructed of brick. A two-storey, attic extension in brick was added in 1926 to the north. This front section has a central, double-leaf, panelled door sheltered by a shallow brick pediment, flanked by sash windows on each side, with similar sashes on the first floor. An oculus is located in the gable. The central range within the courtyard dates to the early 17th century and is timber-framed, later clad in brick. Its south-facing facade features a central panelled door, topped by a four-paned fanlight and a rebated round arch. The sashes of this range have glazing bars and gauged skewback arches, with a cornice and parapet above. The rear of the house is an 18th-century brick range, double-pile in construction; the south section has a Mansard roof, while the north section is gabled.

The interior of the front range shows little of original detail. The central timber-framed range originally comprised a three-celled house. On the ground floor, there are sunk quadrant-moulded bridging beams. A first-floor room on the east side has jowled principal studs, arched braces to the corners, and a chamfered bridging beam with nicked ogee stops. A first-floor room on the west side has jewelled stops to the beams. The roof structure includes butt lower purlins, clasped upper ones and collars, with the lower purlins positioned lower than originally intended. The principals are cut back above the upper purlins, rather than diminished, giving an archaic appearance, and the entire roof likely dates to the early 17th century and may have been re-used. A 19th-century outshut in flint with brick dressings, whitewashed, forms a subsidiary facade with a central panelled door, hood, a blind window to the left, and a sash to the right with glazing bars and a gauged skewback arch, all topped by a dentil eaves cornice.