2 And 4, High Street

Nos. 2 and 4 High Street are a bank and offices, built in the mid-17th century as a free school. The building's origins lie in the will of Sir Francis Theobald, Lord of the Manor of Barking and Needham Market (died 1632), who intended for the Guildhall at Barking to be dismantled and rebuilt in Needham Market. These instructions were apparently not carried out for several decades. The building has a 3-cell lobby-entrance plan, with later alterations in the late 19th century. It is two storeys and attics, constructed with a timber frame and roughcast render, with sections of framing exposed and painted. The roof is plaintiled with axial chimneys of red brick, and features pierced and undulating bargeboards with spike finials. There are late 19th century gabled dormers with cusped bargeboards and casements. The windows are also late 19th century, mullioned and transomed with casements and leaded lights, with a large flat-roofed segmental bay to the left. A two-storey gabled entrance porch has a late 19th or early 20th century arched oak door, framed and boarded. Inside, much of the timber framing is exposed and reused from a late 15th or early 16th century building, likely a hall of 3 bays on the upper floor. Evidence suggests a closed roof truss and a further cell beyond. The floor joists and other main components are heavy and unmoulded, typical of a rural guildhall from around 1500. The mid-17th century rebuilding has a domestic 3-cell form, including a massive axial chimney, chamfered joists of a smaller section in the parlour cell, and a butt-purlin roof. A two-storey rear wing is likely either of the 17th century and remodelled, or added around 1900.