Priory Antiques

This is a 15th-century open hall house, with a 16th-century addition and alterations in the 17th century and later, now used as a shop and accommodation. The house has a timber frame with plastered wattle and daub infill, rubblestone and later brickwork at the rear, and a plain tile roof. It is two storeys high, consisting of four bays, the rearmost bay being the 16th-century addition. The 19th-century shop front has pilasters with plain capitals and plinths framing a 20th-century part-glazed, small-paned door, and flanking two-light windows. The jettied first floor has square panels, large scantling wall posts jowled at the top and bottom, and with large scantling arched braces down to the mid-rail, supporting a four-light diamond-leaded casement window. The roof ridge runs from front to back, with a hip at the front rising into a tile-hung gablet, and a large brick stack is positioned on the ridge.

The right return has a large square-panelled framing with large braces and inserted leaded casement windows of two lights, with a diamond-set mullion, and a five-light window. The added rear bay has some timber framing, a rubblestone plinth at the right corner including a jowled wall post and arched brace, but is mostly rebuilt in brick to allow for fireplaces against the wall, with a chimney rising above the front roof slope.

The interior reveals visible timber framing, showing the former rear wall between the rearmost bays. On the first floor, the central room has a truss with large scantling arched braces up to a cambered tie-beam, which has three mortices in the top from a former crown post and down braces. At the rear of the front bay, another cambered tie-beam supports a crown post and mortices for former down braces. In the roof, the front crown post has mortices from four former arch braces, of which only the front one now survives; it is of large scantling, square in plan, unchamfered, and supports a short sumirine section of collar purlin. Behind this crown post is an inserted stack. Beyond that survive three pairs of original, sooted, halved rafters with collars and carpenters' marks. A former end-wall truss between the rearmost bays exhibits a collar with mortices in the top and soffit for former posts. The rear bay has a collared truss, clasped purlins, straight wind braces and old, bridled rafters. The front bay was reroofed probably in the 16th or early 17th century, featuring a queen-post truss on the right and clasped purlins which extend into the roof space of the adjacent property.