15 And 16, Thoroughfare

15 and 16 Thoroughfare

A Guildhall built in 1474 for the Guild of St John the Baptist and the Guild of St Loye and St Anthony, subsequently altered during the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The building contains shops at ground floor level with living accommodation at first and attic floors.

The structure is timber-framed, mostly encased in brick and plastered, with a pantile roof. It is rectangular in plan, comprising nine bays with extensions to the rear and south-east.

The exterior displays a gable roof with four dormers, each with shaped pediments, and three ridge stacks. The façade features four late 19th-century shop fronts: three to the right with pilasters and fascias with dentil cornices supported on brackets, and one to the left with glazing bars and flush frames. At first floor level there are three eight-over-eight sash windows with horns and three early 19th-century sash windows with flush frames. Above these runs a modillion cornice with quatrefoils between each pair of modillions. To the south-east is a late 20th-century two-storey flat-roofed addition. The building extends to the rear with an off-centre two-storey addition with a hipped roof, varied window openings and 20th-century fenestration. Timber studwork is exposed on the rear elevation of the four northern bays.

Internally, the ground floor shop units retain few historic fixtures. Haunched soffit tenons, probably of early 16th-century date, are visible in the floor frames. At first floor level, the principal timber posts of the former hall feature moulded, arched bracing rising through the later ceiling to attic level. Some front wall posts contain empty mortices suggesting secondary bracing has been removed. The front and right-hand rear wall frames show no studwork, indicating most has been removed during refacing. At attic level, reached by a 19th-century winder stair, the purlins have roll mouldings of differing profiles with arched bracing supporting collars. Substantial tie-beams survive, though the roof structure above the collars is not visible or accessible. Wide floorboards and thin handmade brickwork in the southernmost stack are consistent with 17th-century work. Late 18th or early 19th-century refurbishment is evidenced by two-panel doors at first and attic levels and a reeded door-case on the first floor. Considerable 20th-century remodelling has occurred at ground and first floor levels with inserted walls, corridors and stairs.

The Guildhall was originally built to serve the two Guilds in teaching crafts to apprentices, who were accommodated within the building itself. Following the dissolution of the Guilds, the Crown acquired the property. After 1550 it was held by Robert Norton, with rents supporting the town's poor. In 1585, Queen Elizabeth I granted a petition from the townspeople for possession and free use of the building.

The building may originally have comprised two open halls at first floor, each of four bays with a central entrance bay, possibly with subdivided ground floor units. The halls were later conjoined. The open hall was floored over at attic level, probably in the 17th century, when the right-hand stack was also inserted; the building may have been encased at this time. Further remodelling occurred in the late 18th century, and extensive alterations took place in the 19th century when the ground floor was converted to shops. Numerous 20th-century extensions have been added to the south and rear, with altered window openings and fenestration. The interior at ground and first floor levels has been extensively remodelled in the 20th century.