69 High Street

Terraced shop with offices above. Built in around the mid-C18 with C20 alterations.

MATERIALS: built of purple grey bricks with red brick quoins and window dressings with the gable ends hung with slate and clay tile roof coverings.

PLAN: rectangular in plan with a narrow front elevation onto the High Street. As with most other historic plots along the High Street, 69 High Street appears to retain its historic, burgage plot width.

EXTERIOR: three storeys high and two bays wide. The front (north) elevation is faced with purple grey bricks laid in header bond with red brick window dressings and quoins. There is a large shopfront to the ground floor, which has large canted plate glass shop windows and a recessed central shop entrance with a tiled porch. The shop windows have upper leaded stained-glass clerestory lights. The central doorway has a fielded lower panel and large glazed upper panel and is set beneath a transom light. On the eastern side is an additional entrance providing access to the offices above. This is flanked by fielded pilasters set on fluted pedestals and contains a six-panelled door beneath a transom light. The pilaster to the east of the door, as well as a third one at the west end of the shopfront, support fluted console brackets. Set between the brackets is a large fascia panel carrying the shop signage surmounted by a moulded cornice and decorative ironwork balustrade with a circle motif and floral finials.

A shallow, flat-roofed oriel window is centrally placed above the shopfront at first floor level. This consists of three sashes; two four-over-four side sashes and a central ten-over-ten sash set beneath a plain frieze and shallow dentil cornice. At second floor level are two eight-over-eight sash windows with flush moulded surrounds.