39, Church Street

39 Church Street is a house that was originally two separate homes, built in the mid 14th century and mid 16th century, which were converted into one in the 19th century. The building has a four-window range, with three west windows representing the mid 14th-century hall house and the east window marking the mid 16th-century house. It features a roughcast and painted timber frame with a pantiled roof.

The house has two storeys. The west bay is jettied, with former service rooms below and a solar above. The ground floor includes one 3/3 horned sash window. The second bay has a 4-panelled door on the left and double timber doors leading to a carriageway at the rear. The third bay features a 4-panelled door in a timber doorcase and another 3/3 horned sash window. The final east bay has a late 19th-century shop display window, with renewed glass from the 20th century, set within 19th-century pilaster strips and a doorway to its left. The first floor is lit by four 3/6 unhorned sash windows, and the gabled roof is hipped to the west, with no stacks.

Inside, the east bay contains chamfered bridging beams. The frame of the main house is made of heavy scantling. The former open hall occupies the center of the present house and was floored around 1540 with multiple roll-moulded joists supported by two bridging beams, which also have multiple roll mouldings. A carriageway was cut through the house in the 20th century. On the west side of the carriageway is the site of a screens passage, with one half of a doorway remaining at the rear. A 20th-century staircase has been inserted into the passage. The west room has mortice holes for former service partitions. The first floor retains square mortice holes for mullioned windows at the front and rear. The hall is lit by similar mullioned windows directly above and below the rear middle rail. Above the hall is a complete two-bay crown post roof, although the crown post has lost its moulded base. It features an octagonal shaft and moulded capital over an astragal collar, with four solid arched braces to the crown purlin and collars. The common rafters are intact, and studs from the former end gable wall remain to the east. This house is notable as an early example of flooring in an open hall.