53 And 54, Low Street

53 and 54 Low Street originally comprised a single house, dating to the late 15th or early 16th century. It is now divided into two dwellings. The building is timber framed, with the majority of the exterior rendered in plaster, featuring textured decoration on the facade. The right gable end has been re-faced in colourwashed brick. The roof is thatched. The building has two storeys and an attic, displaying four 18th-century casement windows, the upper ones featuring elliptically-headed arches above. Number 53 has a 19th-century half-glazed door with a bracketed flat hood. The doorway to Number 54 features a reeded architrave and a small bracketed hood, leading to a 19th-century plank door decorated with studded battens in a 16th-century style. Both doorways are approached by a flight of three steps. There is an internal stack and a smaller external stack to the left gable end. It is thought the building may have originally been an open hall house, though the roof timbers show no signs of smoke-blackening, indicating the stack is a later addition against the upper end of the hall. The ceiling of the hall has closely-spaced, plain joists. A cross-beam with moulded and embattled ornament sits at the lower end, while heavier plain joists are found at the solar end (within Number 53). Some exposed studding with reverse-curved braces is visible, along with a queen-post roof in the hall, notable for the absence of braces. The roof was originally hipped.