1 And 2, Station Road

Numbers 1 and 2 Station Road, Melton

Numbers 1 and 2 Station Road form part of a terrace of houses and a shop with origins spanning the 15th, 17th and 18th centuries, extended during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Number 1 Station Road contains a 15th-century timber frame, now encased with over-painted brick to the front. Number 2 may also be timber-framed and has an over-painted brick frontage. Number 1 is built on a rectangular plan with rear extensions, angled at the corner of Station Road and The Street. Number 2 has an L-shaped plan and includes an integrated building to the east.

Number 1 is a two-storey building with a gable roof covered in slate at a raised pitch to the front, and tile covering to the rear, with a rebuilt ridge stack at its east end. The brick-encased façade features 19th-century two-over-two light sash windows on the first floor, one enlarged with shoulder lights, and a 19th-century ground floor shop-front. The rear elevation has a stair tower with 20th-century render and a flat roof, together with 19th and 20th-century single and two-storey extensions.

Number 2 is also two storeys, with a colour-washed brick face and slate-covered gable roof with a red-brick end stack. A building with a shallow gable roof has been integrated to the east, with a 20th-century lean-to garage adjoining. The fenestration comprises sashes in recessed and flush frames with glazing bars of ten-over-ten lights at ground floor and five-over-ten at first floor, all with segmental gauged brick arches.

Number 1 contains a 16th-century timber-frame with brick front. The 19th-century shop front at ground level has removed the front wall-framing, but the rear wall post with later nailed knee braces and the midrail survive in the shop itself. The floor frame consists of an unstopped chamfered axial bridging beam with adze marks and joists set into it. A series of joists set at right angles may mark the position of an original stair. In the room to the right of the shop, a transverse bridging beam and a partly exposed bresummer survive over a 20th-century rebuilt brick fire surround. To the rear, a corridor runs along the axis of the building at both ground and first floor levels, curtailed on the ground floor by rear extensions and the shop. A 19th-century door across the corridor retains an 18th-century 'HL' hinge attached with 20th-century screws. The cellar and rear stair tower are accessed from the corridor, the latter probably added in the 17th century. The dog-leg stair has a moulded handrail and closed string with 17th-century barley twist newels with bun and ball finials. Splat balusters of the same date remain from the half landing to the first floor but are lost on the first flight, replaced with 20th-century replicas on the first floor to attic flight. The first floor access to the stair is inserted through the rear of the 15th-century wall-frame, truncating a mullion window with diamond sockets, the lintel of which remains in situ, and cutting through a barley-twist newel. A substantial chimney stack constructed with 17th-century bricks stands to the front of the stairs.

On the first floor, wall framing survives along most of the frontage and is exposed in many of the rooms leading from the corridor at the rear. Two rooms have six-panel doors with applied fillets, possibly early 17th-century, though hung in 19th-century door frames. The room to the east of the stairs has intact close-studded wall framing, a substantial wall plate (interrupted by 19th-century inserted windows) and cross bracing with wattle and daub infill panels in situ. The room at the far west end has in-situ wall posts and a tie beam, but the wall plates to front and rear are obscured or absent. Jowelled and moulded storey posts support tie beams of large scantling spanning the corridor to the front wall-plate. A tank room to the rear of the corridor has wide floor boards and an in-situ tie beam over. The roof structure is a plain crown-post braced two ways to the collar purlin. The front pitch has been raised with new rafters, and side purlins have been added, but the original rafters are retained. Wide floor planking suggests the floor frame may survive beneath but is largely obscured. A carved wall-plate and pargetting are said to remain in the west gable-end, though these were not observed during inspection.

No interior inspection of Number 2 Station Road was undertaken.

From the 8th century, Melton grew in importance due to its association with the dean and chapter of Ely, who owned the borough throughout the medieval period. Comparison between the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1881 and the present day indicates that a separate building to the east has now been integrated into Number 2 Station Road, and that there have been 19th and 20th-century extensions to the rear of Number 1. The latter retains a 15th-century timber-frame, remodelled in the 17th century, with a 19th-century inserted shop front. It was almost certainly subdivided into smaller dwellings in the past but has been integrated for a considerable period. In the later 19th century it served as the village post office and may have incorporated a dwelling for the postmaster or postmistress. For the last 50 years it has been in use as a fish and chip shop and restaurant.