107 AND 109, HIGH STREET

Two houses, built as one in the early 15th century, with alterations around 1500, 1600, and in the late 19th century. They were originally an open hall house with two contemporary cross-wings. The building is two storeys high with a four-window frontage. The timber frame is largely concealed by a 19th-century painted gault brick facade, featuring flat pilasters rising to the foot of three gables. The roof is plain-tiled with parapet gables, and the rear chimneys are of red brick. The 19th-century windows have flat arches of gauged brick. Number 107 has 19th-century windows with wooden mullions and transoms, while number 109 has similar windows fitted in the late 20th century. Number 107 has a 19th-century four-panelled entrance door with glazed upper panels. Number 109 has a late 20th-century boarded and battened door representing the entrance to the former cross-passage within the service wing.

Inside number 109, the hall contains a moulded sphere-beam, with evidence of removed posts and braces. The chamber above the service wing features a fully exposed crownpost roof of two bays, with a cambered arch-braced tie-beam, a short octagonal crownpost, four-way knee-bracing, and a moulded capital. This wing has massive exposed floor joists and indications of a former jetty projecting towards the street. Number 107 comprises the left-hand cross-wing, which has a complete crownpost roof with square crownposts and two-way knee-bracing.

A wing of around 1500 extends to the rear of the hall range and may have once been a separate building. It displays jettying over two consecutive sides, with concealed moulded bressumers, a missing corner-post, and a plain crownpost roof. A ground floor room in this wing has mid-18th century wainscotting, with matching joinery elsewhere. An upper floor was inserted over the hall around 1600, incorporating ovolo-moulded beams and joists. A large open fireplace (now blocked) was placed against the rear wall of the hall, and the original roof over the open hall was rebuilt with a gable facing the street. A 1476 rental document refers to the house as “Bretts”, formerly owned by John Raven and held by Robert Flegg. Samuel Alexander established a bank at this location in 1744, subsequently relocating to number 129 High Street in 1756.