39-41 Green Street

39-41 Green Street

A house, formerly a pair of cottages, dating from around 1718.

The building is constructed from brown brick laid in Flemish bond with red brick dressings and a tiled roof.

Originally the building consisted of two cottages divided by a central wall, each with a mirrored two-up-two-down plan arrangement, an attic room, and a stair contained within a rear tower. This arrangement remains, though openings have been created within the dividing wall on each floor. A cellar lies beneath the rear rooms, and a single-storey lean-to extension of modern date has been added to the rear wall.

The principal elevation faces roughly east onto Green Street and is of three bays, with the central bay projecting slightly forward and emphasised with brick quoins. At ground-floor level there are two central doorways beneath a shallow leaded monopitched canopy with shaped timber brackets. The left doorway is blocked and has an oval window; the right doorway is solid timber with six fielded panels within a moulded timber architrave. To either side is a four-over-four pane hornless sash window with a red brick architrave and flat arched lintel of gauged brick with a brick keystone. The first floor has a window with a plain brick lintel to each outer bay, and in the central projection is a blind window with a keystone lintel. The right-hand corner of the elevation is cantoned with brick quoins; the corresponding decoration on the left has been covered by the adjacent later building. Two small box dormers in the roof align with the windows of the outer bays. Beneath the eaves there is a recessed red brick apron-like panel to each bay.

The northern return elevation is blind, with a wide stack rising through the rear pitch of the roof.

The rear elevation has a late 20th-century single-storey catslide extension, the central section of which has a flat roof, exposing a section of the original rear elevation at first-floor level. This has two four-light casements to either side of a central stair tower. The tower has two small windows lighting the two flights of stairs to the attic and a hipped roof adjoining the main range.

The internal surfaces of much of the building were stripped back to brick during late 20th-century renovation. In some areas the brick partitions have been left bare, with vertical and diagonal lacing timbers within the brickwork. The ground-floor front rooms have an exposed axial beam with shallow chamfers and lamb's tongue stops. On the ground and first floors there are diagonally orientated corner fireplaces; those on the ground floor have wide openings, and those on the first floor are narrower. No original chimneypieces remain, though there is a cast-iron Victorian surround in the northern first-floor front room. The partition between the attic rooms has exposed studwork. The roof structure has been partially replaced and is constructed from coupled rafters with collar beams. The cellar is a single room beneath the two rear rooms with a brick-lined floor.