5, Kingsgate Street

This is an early 18th-century house, altered around the early 19th century. It is constructed of Flemish bond red brick with vitrified headers and features gauged red brick detailing. A low, probably later, painted stone parapet sits above a brick modillion cornice, with a wooden gutter at the rear. The roof is covered with clay plain tiles, and there are brick gable-end stacks.

The house has a double-depth plan with two large front rooms, a smaller room incorporated into the back room, and a central entrance passage. Behind the larger left room is an open-well staircase. A 20th-century rear wing has been added.

The west front has three storeys and five bays, with the right-hand bay being blind. The windows have raised gauged red brick eared architraves, with a deep brick platband above. The first floor has 12-pane sashes, while the second floor has smaller 6-pane sashes, all within moulded cases. One second-floor window, the second bay from the left, is blind. The ground floor was altered around the early 19th century, featuring a wooden fascia with a cornice. It incorporates a tripartite sash with glazing bars on the left and a 16-pane sash on the right, complete with integral shutters. The doorway is located to the right of centre and has reeded pilasters, an intricate traceried overlight, and a fielded and flush six-panel door. The rear elevation has 12-pane sashes in moulded cases, along with the recently built brick wing on the right.

The interior is largely complete, retaining early 18th and some early 19th-century joinery. The north ground-floor room has fielded panelling with a dado rail and moulded cornice. It also features a bolection chimneypiece with Delft tiles and an arched overdoor with birds in the spandrels. The right-hand ground-floor room has an early 19th-century reeded chimneypiece. An arch with a keyblock leads from the rear of the entrance passage to the stairwell, which has an open-well staircase rising the full height of the house. The staircase features a moulded string, a heavy moulded handrail, thick turned balusters, square newels with ball finials and pendants; a strengthening was added around the early 19th century through the insertion of turned wooden columns over the newels. The two first-floor front rooms feature fielded panelling with dado rails and moulded cornices. The right room has a bolection chimneypiece and iron grate, while the left room has an early 19th-century reeded chimneypiece. Panelled window shutters and fielded panel doors are also present. Second-floor rooms have simple chimneypieces, iron grates, and two-panel doors.

This is an unusually intact early 18th-century town house with a largely complete interior.