7, Northgate Street

House, circa 1500

7 Northgate Street is a timber-framed and jettied house dating to around 1500, originally with brick nogging that is now entirely rendered in panels. The jetty ends are covered by a moulded fascia, and the roof is plain-tiled.

The exterior comprises two storeys with a cellar to part and attics. The front elevation has seven irregularly spaced sash windows with a single vertical glazing-bar to each light, set in flush cased frames. The central entrance door is a six-panel design set up six steps with cast-iron wreathed handrails. It has an Adam style fanlight with radiating glazing bars and is recessed in a wood doorcase with panelled reveals, pilasters, and an open dentilled cornice. In the apex of the south gable is a 16-pane sash window in a flush cased frame. A brick extension at the rear partially replaces a 19th-century brick range.

The jetty was underbuilt in the 18th century, resulting in a double front wall with a gap between the two. Into this gap were fitted panelled frames and inside shutters for the sash windows. Part of the original front wall survives on the south side, visible from inside the house, with brackets supporting the jetty that had carved capitals and shafts down the front of the posts. A new jetty was added to the upper storey, also intended to make space for inserted sash windows.

The interior is structurally distinct in two halves, close in date. The cellar below the south end has an original ceiling with plain joists and heavy main beam. The walls contain niches and a wide retaining arch in the inner wall. A 19th-century brick addition features numbered wine bins.

The south section comprises two bays, including the entry, divided into two rooms. Both have double ogee moulding to the main ceiling beams and joists. The north wall has a six-panel door in a moulded surround with exposed studding and remains of wall painting simulating wood panelling: the panels are outlined in red and contain brown roughly drawn wood graining. A rebuilt chimney-stack on the back wall has stone jambs. The smaller first storey fireplace has stone jambs and a plain cambered timber lintel.

The south upper storey is divided into two rooms. The principal room has exposed studding and traces of wall painting in three phases. The north wall is similar to the room below. Along the south wall is a delicately painted late 17th-century floral design with vase on a pink background in one panel, with parts of a frieze in grey and black over a doorway. The ceiling has shallow double roll mouldings to the cross beams and single roll mouldings to the joists. The partition wall between the two upper rooms has long tension braces, and the end room has a blocked stair trap.

The roof has side purlins set square and the remains of braces for a queen-post roof. The queen-posts are missing and there is a second layer of rafters.

To the north of the entry are three bays of slightly earlier framing which formed a single large room on each storey. The exposed ground storey ceilings have heavy chamfered cross-beams with cut-off stops and plain unchamfered joists. Studding along the front wall has the remains of brick nogging. A chimney-stack on the rear wall has a plain timber lintel. On the upper storey, the walls have long arched braces halved against the studs and arched braces (some removed) to the tie-beams. The tie-beam of the open truss has a peg-hole and mortice for a missing crown-post. The much-repaired roof has three layers of rafters.