Number 61 And Attached Railings

This is a house dating from the 14th century, with alterations and extensions in the 16th century and a full restoration in 1994/5. It is timber-framed and rendered, with raised roughcast panels to the front, and has an old plaintiled roof. The house is two storeys and attics, with jettied eaves along the street frontage. The front has one window to each storey: a 16-pane sash in a flush cased frame on the first storey, and a small-paned early 19th-century shop window with rounded corners and panelled stall-boards on the ground storey. The attic has a 2-light casement window with ornate 17th-century window latches. This surviving cross-wing is the oldest part of a complex that includes numbers 62 and 63 Whiting Street. It was originally built against an earlier, probably 13th-century, hall range. A 16th-century chimney stack on the south gable wall indicates that there was once a range adjoining it to the south; the top of the stack is in red brick, with sawtooth chimneys on a high base, and the lower part is rendered with a fireplace and stone jambs and a cambered lintel on the upper storey. The 6-panel entrance door has a plain wood surround and a rectangular fanlight above. Short 19th-century cast-iron railings and a matching gate with arrowhead finials and scrolled tops to the main supports are attached to the front of the house.

The interior includes a filled-in cellar. The entrance door opens into a passage that is structurally part of the adjoining 15th-century hall range (now within numbers 62 and 63). The wing is in four bays, divided on the upper storey into two rooms. The main posts of the frame retain remains of long 2-way braces rising to the wallplates, housed with open lap joints, some slightly dovetailed. The front ground floor room has a heavy 15th-century ceiling with a chamfered main beam, supported by large arched braces (one removed) and plain joists. The rear room has a 14th-century ceiling with lodged joists. A 16th-century fireplace in the front bay, part of the stack built against the south wall, has a wide opening with a fine cambered lintel and supporting jambs of reused stone. The upper storey ceilings have closely set main beams. The roof is a plain 17th-century replacement, with side purlins, but fragmentary evidence within one truss suggests it was originally of crown post form.