Number 81 And Former Meeting Room At Rear

Number 81 and the former meeting room at the rear is a house that represents the solar block of a high-quality early 15th-century house, with the main part of the structure found within Nos. 83 and 85 High Street. It has undergone alterations around 1600 and in the 19th century. The building is timber-framed and plastered, topped with a plain tiled roof that features a rear chimney made of red brick from the 16th century.

The house has two storeys and two windows, with 19th-century small-pane sash windows and a recessed entrance door with four panels. The layout is unusual, consisting of a single ground storey room beneath a narrow solar that has an ante-room to the left. The plain crown post roof of the solar remains intact, aligned with the hall roof. The roof above the solar, which appears to have once been of narrow cross-wing form, has been rebuilt.

Inside, there is a cambered tie-beam in the two-bay solar, supported by thick arch-braces, although the pilasters have been cut away. At the ground storey, a massive chamfered and knee-braced bridging joist is present. A two-storey wing added in the 17th century at the rear features an ovolo-moulded beam on the first floor. Further back, a single-storey wing contains a vacant meeting room that was formerly used by the Plymouth Brethren. This room dates from the 16th or 17th century, is also timber-framed and plastered, and has early 19th-century small-pane sashes. The entrance door to this room is battened and boarded, with an ogee-arched head in the late 14th-century style.