41, 43 AND 45, HIGH STREET

Nos. 41, 43, and 45 on High Street are shops with living accommodation, dating from the 17th century, with a mid-19th century refronting and 20th century alterations and additions. The buildings are constructed of red brick, with the front and part of the rear in Flemish bond featuring pale headers. They have a plain tile roof behind a coped parapet and brick stacks. The structure is three storeys high and consists of four bays.

On the ground floor, the left side (occupied by Pearces, bakers) features a 19th century shopfront with floriated consoles supporting a large round-topped fascia and blind-box ends. Inside, there is a modern pair of doors and a slightly bowed paned shop window. To the right, there are plate-glass shop windows above a low plinth wall, with inset glazed doors and a fascia above.

The first floor has 20-pane sash windows with partly concealed boxes under rubbed pale buff brick flat arches. There is a plat band below the similar but 16-pane sash windows on the second floor. The parapet and west gable end have been rebuilt. The rear of the building shows a complex arrangement of three unequal steeply-pitched 17th century gables, all tiled, with one gable extending beyond a four-flue stack by a further hipped roof, which is also likely from the 17th century. There are additional alterations from the 1970s.

Inside, the shop interiors have been modernised, while the upper floors contain a series of rooms within the 17th century structure, although direct historic evidence is currently obscured. Historically, this building is noted to have first appeared in records for 1597 as a waggoner's inn and later developed into a coaching inn, which closed in 1823. It remains a significant historic building at the centre of the town, retaining a substantial amount of its 17th century fabric.