27-29, THAMESIDE

Three houses at 27–29 Thameside in Henley-on-Thames, partly dating from the mid-15th century and altered and extended in the early 19th century.

The northern part of the range, comprising No. 29 and the north part of No. 28, represents the surviving portion of a late-medieval timber-framed building, probably built around the mid-15th century in connexion with the river trade. The southern part of No. 28 and No. 27 form an early 19th-century addition of two further bays.

The medieval timber-framed section had its street front rebuilt in brick. The 19th-century part is wholly brick-built. All three houses have roofs of plain clay tiles.

No. 29 is distinguished by a quadrant-curved front wall of red and grey brick, mostly laid in header bond. It features a four-panel door to the left and four multi-pane sash windows set under flat-arched heads of gauged rubbed brick. A curved half-hipped roof surmounts the curved wall, with a gabled kitchen extension at the rear. No. 28 is clad externally in painted brick, rendered to the first floor, with a plank door, irregularly-placed sash and casement windows and two half-hipped dormers. It has a tall brick stack and a hipped end where the roof of the early building drops to meet the pitched roof of the later 19th-century addition. Both Nos. 27 and 28 have modest lean-to rear extensions. No. 27 is of painted and rendered brick with a plank door, casement windows and a brick end stack.

Internally, little early fabric survives at ground floor level, but parts of the timber frame of unusually heavy scantling are preserved in the first floor and attic of Nos. 28 and 29. The rear wall of No. 29 preserves original close studding with one long curved brace. The original south end wall with studwork and a blocked square-mullioned window survives as an internal partition in No. 28. Both buildings retain crown-strut roofs with clasped purlins and long curved wind-braces. The dividing wall in the attic between Nos. 28 and 29 preserves a complete truss, closed with studwork between tie beam and collar, with crown struts surviving in adjoining trusses. The interior of No. 27 was not inspected but is understood to be entirely 19th-century.

Historically, the building is shown on a map of 1788 and in an engraving of around 1813 to have had a square jettied corner bay at the intersection of Thameside and New Street, at which point it was a beer house known as the Anchor. This corner was cut back by about half a bay for road widening in the early 19th century, creating the present rounded corner to No. 29. In the same period the range was extended to the south with the addition of No. 27 and the southern half of No. 28. Further rear extensions were added in the later 19th and early 20th centuries.