32, High Street

Shop and accommodation on the High Street in Hastings, built in the late 18th century with an early to mid 19th century façade and restored mid 19th century shopfront.

The building occupies the site of the former southern bay of a Wealden hall house (now represented by the adjoining No. 31 High Street). It is thought that this original bay was demolished, possibly during the 17th or 18th century, and subsequently replaced by the existing three-storey structure. The rear wing, shared with No. 31, dates from the late 17th or early 18th century.

The front elevation is rendered in stucco with a hipped slate roof behind a rendered blocking course. The rear features a red, brown, and buff brick wing with a tile-hung upper gable wall and a half-hipped plain tile gambrel roof. An internal brick stack is present, and the rear of the hipped slate-roofed bay is constructed of red brick with burnt headers.

The ground floor contains a shop accessed by a four-panelled door to the right. The shopfront features a four-over-four fixed rectangular pane window under a deep pierced grille, with restored panels above and below, all beneath a deep moulded fascia that appears partly boarded over. To the left, a four-panelled door (included within the structure of No. 31) leads to a side passage providing access to the shop and rear of the house. The first floor has a single tripartite window with a central panel of six-over-six panes. The upper floor displays a single unhorned sash of eight-over-eight panes. The blocking course is finished with a narrow moulded cornice.

The rear elevation contains eight-over-eight pane unhorned sashes in exposed boxes on each upper storey of the early 18th century brick wing, and six-over-six pane sashes under flat red brick arches on the upper floors of the hipped slate roof bay. The 1967 survey of No. 31 identified doorways connecting to No. 32 that were thought to be modern. At attic level, No. 32 was formerly connected to No. 31 by a doorway, now blocked, which remains visible from within No. 31.

No. 32 High Street forms part of a group with all listed buildings in the High Street up to and including No. 118, situated within a rich context of medieval and early post-medieval buildings that form the core of historic Hastings.