The Wurlie

This is a house, now divided into three dwellings, dating back to the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. It is constructed with a timber frame and rendered exterior, covered in old plain tiles. The building presents a complex form, comprising at least four distinct phases of construction: a central range aligned north-south and perpendicular to the street, flanked by two cross-wings of differing dates. It is two storeys high, with attics in one cross-wing.

Number 1, on the street frontage, features 2-light and 3-light windows of modern standard and a recessed porch with an ornate 20th-century plank door. To its left is a late medieval open hall, evidenced by housings for 5-light diamond-mullioned windows on both side walls; the middle rails of the timber frames served as transoms, with rebates for shutters. Original main posts have carved capitals and remains of shafts, supported by heavy arched braces meeting below a cambered tie-beam, and include a plain square crown-post braced in four ways. There is minimal smoke-blackening on the roof timbers. The western gable end has arched braces to the tie-beam but lacks original studding, suggesting the building extended further west. A fine, inserted hall ceiling features double roll-molding on the cross-beams and a single roll on the joists.

Adjoining the hall on the right is a two-bay extension from the later 17th century, exhibiting joists on edge, original upper ceilings, and principal rafters, with substantial timber replacement during restoration in the 1960s. Number 2, the central range, has 2-light windows of modern standard, alongside a 4-light window with molded mullions on the south side, and two 5-light older windows on the north side, featuring diamond mullions on the upper floor and reinstated molded mullions on the ground floor. Two plank doors, one ornate, are present. An internal chimney-stack with a plain, rebuilt red brick shaft is also a feature. The internal layout is a three-cell plan with the ground-floor hall exhibiting a main beam with double roll-molding and a single roll to joists, a large open fireplace with a Tudor brick surround and a plain cambered lintel, and two service doorways in the partition wall with shallow, almost segmental, arched heads. The roof is of a plain queen-post design.

Number 3, the north cross-wing, features small-paned casement windows throughout, a gabled dormer, a small lean-to porch addition, and an internal chimney-stack with a plain, rebuilt red brick shaft. The front section displays close studding and remnants of original windows, including shutter slides on the side walls, one of which was likely an oriel. A main beam to the ground-floor ceiling has a cavetto molding between two roll moldings and the joists are roll-molded. The upper floor fireplace has a depressed brick arch and it is believed a smoke-bay preceded the stack. This portion of the wing, contemporary with the central range, appears to have initially functioned as a separate unit house and now connects to the remainder of the building via a 17th-century link. Both halves of this wing had original upper ceilings, and the roof incorporates clasped side purlins.