40 to 46, High Street and Crown Court, High Street

Commercial premises, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, with alterations. The building is principally timber frame with brick infill, Bargate rubble stone, and brick, with plain tile roofs. Originally built around a courtyard, it is now U-shaped, with the front range having been demolished. The central, jettied part of the left range (part of number 46) is from the 16th century, with other parts appearing later, and the rear range was rebuilt in 1950, reusing 16th-century material. It is two storeys high.

The right range (number 40) has a 20th-century shop front to the front, and a rendered first floor with a 20th-century transomed three-light window under a steeply-pitched gable. The right return is of galleted stone with brick dressings. The left return reveals a timber frame, with large rubblestone panels to the ground floor on the right, brick above, a long tension brace running down from a wall post to a midrail, and 20th-century casements in the framing, all under a hipped gable. To the left is a 20th-century shop front to the ground floor, with smaller timber-framed panelling above, three windows, and a roof at a slightly lower level with a ridge stack.

The left range (number 46) has a painted front with a wall post at the right corner. The left side has a late 19th-century shop front with a window and a two-panel door (top panel glazed), set within an architrave of panelled pilasters supporting an entablature with paired brackets at the ends of the fascia, carrying a dentil cornice with raised roundels. A sash window is to the right, mirroring the entablature, with the cornice continuing from the shop front. On the first floor are two four-pane sashes, and a dentilled eaves detail. The roof is hipped on the left and has a central cross-ridge stack. The left return has tile-hung upper sections above a rubblestone ground floor. The right return incorporates a gabled bay of timber frame with brick infill, a pointed-arched doorway in the right-hand panel, a 20th-century brick plinth below the sole plate, tall ground-floor panels, smaller upper panels, a short cantilevered bay window with leaded casements, and a tile-hung gable. The three bays to the right, forming the earlier part of the range, feature a central doorway, full-height ground-floor panels with 20th-century windows, smaller upper panels with three 20th-century windows, and an arch brace from rail to wall plate, with two ridge stacks near the centre.

The rear range has a full-height central throughway with posts arch-braced to the wall plate, and flanking one-story pedestrian throughways with leaded casements above.

The interior of the left range contains a central fireplace with a chamfered timber lintel and another fireplace at the north end (restored), large-scantling joists, and upstairs in number 46A, a landing balustrade with twist-profile splat balusters and a queen-post roof truss. The rear range includes large-scantling spine beams and joists, crown posts with V braces to the collar, and stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.