13-16 High Street

A range of houses with shop premises, dating to circa 1300, significantly altered and refronted in the 18th century. The building is timber-framed with a vitrified header bond brick front, red brick dressings, and a rendered and flint south side. It has a clay plain tile roof with a hipped end, and brick axial and end stacks.

The original layout consists of a two-bay timber frame at numbers 13 and 14, and a two-bay cross-wing, dating to circa 1300, at number 15, which originally served as a large chamber over a store with a low ceiling. A later 18th-century staircase, serving number 16, is located in the rear bay of the cross-wing and that number was amalgamated with number 15.

The asymmetrical east front has two bays to the right, featuring a platband above the first-floor windows. The windows are 12 and 16-pane sashes in flush frames, with red brick cambered arches and jambs. The central, three-storey bay is rendered with arched openings. Numbers 15 and 16 have 18th-century pilastered doorcases with shouldered architraves, panelled reveals, and segmental open pediments; number 16 has a fielded panel door. Numbers 13, 14 and 15 have 20th-century shop fronts, while number 16 has 12-pane sashes. Brick wings are located at the rear.

Internally, numbers 13 and 14 retain a two-bay Medieval crown-post roof. Number 14 features a cavetto-moulded axial beam with large joists that extend to form a jetty. Number 15's cross-wing has a low ceiling to the ground floor room with a large chamfered cross-beam with a curved brace at one end, large unchamfered joists, and a two-bay king-post roof above. The roof features arch braces (missing), a chamfered cambered tie-beam, a tall king-post with long curved under-rafters, raking struts from the king-post to the principal rafters, side purlins, and a straight longitudinal brace from the king-post to the ridgepiece. A good 18th-century staircase is located in the rear bay of the chamber, serving the hall-passage of number 16, which also has good Georgian joinery and a tenoned-purlin roof. The frame at number 15 has been dendro-dated to between 1280 and 1312.