The Supply Stores

The Supply Stores is a shop and post office with origins in the 17th century, significantly altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. The front is of plastered brick, with timber framing above clad in 20th-century scallop tiles, and a west gable-end clad in peg tiles. The rear blocks are of red brick. Brick stacks and chimneyshafts rise from the roof, which is covered in peg tiles.

The building originally comprised a shop and post office with living accommodation, facing north. The ground floor partitions in the main block have been largely removed to create a large shop area. It appears the original plan was for four rooms. There is a disused projecting stack on the right (east) end, a rear lateral stack to the right of centre, and another to the rear of the left (west) end room, which remains partitioned off from the shop; this last stack also serves a rear block. Two parallel rear blocks project at right angles behind the left end of the main building.

The 17th-century section of the house likely occupied the left two or three rooms of the main block, with the right section and rear blocks added in the 19th century. It's probable that the premises were formed by combining two or three former properties.

The building is two storeys high, with a lean-to outshot across the rear to the west of the rear blocks. The front has an irregular 4-window arrangement with a mix of 19th and 20th-century windows. A 20th-century flat-roofed extension projects forward on the right-hand side with a large window and a plain door. Two 20th-century canted bay windows with narrow mullions are in the centre, and a late 19th-century sash with margin panes is at the left end. The first-floor windows are 20th-century casements with glazing bars. A late 19th-century top-glazed six-panel door is housed within a doorway to the left of centre. The main block roof is half-hipped. The rear blocks have a late 19th-century sash with margin panes and a wide doorway with a segmental arch sheltering a 19th-century plank door; the adjacent window is protected by iron bars. Both rear block roofs are hipped.

Inside, 17th-century carpentry detail is primarily contained within the western end of the main block. The left end room, and the adjacent former room, both have chamfered axial beams; the former has scroll stops, the latter run-out stops. The remaining carpentry detail in the main block is plain and relatively light. Roof carpentry shows two phases, both seemingly 19th-century. Most fireplaces are blocked, but the eastern rear lateral stack was substantial. The outshot behind includes a 19th-century fireplace with a bakehouse oven.