54-56 and 54A High Street, Billingshurst

Building: 54-56 and 54A High Street, Billingshurst

54-56 and 54A is a timber-framed building of medieval origin with two-storey ranges fronting and running perpendicular to the street. The street frontage is rendered with Horsham stone roofs, while the rear range is clad primarily in brick and tile hanging with plain tile roofs. The building is now divided into two premises: a chemist in the central and southern bays, and a carpet shop in the northern bay extending to the rear. The ground floor of the front range was substantially rebuilt in the 20th century with masonry walls and large modern shop fronts.

The front range comprises three bays. No. 54 retains a single first-floor two-over-two pane sash window set close under the eaves, above a 20th-century shop front of no historic interest that extends forward of the original front wall, which has been removed at ground level. No. 56 has a shallow, probably late 19th-century projecting bay beneath a half-hipped roof. The upper floor is constructed in red brick in Flemish bond beneath a Horsham slate roof, with plain timber bargeboards and a four-light timber sash. The ground floor is dominated by a later 20th-century shop front of no historic interest.

The rear range, No. 54A, runs at right angles to the street and comprises three bays. The ground floor of the west-facing elevation is clad in red brick in Sussex bond and stretcher bond, with a 20th-century two-light metal-framed casement beneath a shallow cambered arch and enlarged timber casements. The entrance to the southernmost bay has a 20th-century glazed door. The first floor is clad in alternating bands of plain and fish-scale tiles with three-light timber casements either side of a small two-light casement. The upper floor of the gable wall displays exposed box framing with rendered panels to the right of a large, offset external brick stack, its lower courses in Sussex bond and upper stage partly rebuilt in stretcher bond with offset tile hanging. To the left of the stack the upper floor is tile-hung above an added porch, with a small gable window in the roof space adjacent to the stack above a two-light first-floor timber casement.

Internally, the front range's northern bay (No. 54) at ground floor retains reused components from an exposed timber frame. The upper floor exposes timber framing with jowled posts, arch braced at the angles from posts to mid-rail, and a stop-chamfered axial beam with a one and a half inch chamfer. The south-western post adjacent to the door is of heavier scantling, suggesting it survives from an earlier building. A two-light window has a diamond mullion. The central and southern bays (No. 56) have been rebuilt at ground floor with a later single-storey extension to the south lacking evidence of historic fabric. Below the building is a small shallow cellar offset from the main range. The first floor timber frame has jowled posts and a formerly external timber-framed gable wall to the south, with wall plate and axial beam chamfered similarly to No. 54. The roof above the front range employs side purlin construction with a proportion of replaced rafters.

The rear range, No. 54A, features exposed timber framing on external walls and internal partitions, creating a narrow passage parallel to the north wall where a 19th-century staircase has slender square newels, stick balusters of two per tread, and shaped tread ends. The ground floor axial beam has been boxed in; the first floor has horizontally proportioned chamfered ceiling beams. Stone flag floors are present on the ground floor. The former inglenook fireplace opening to the main stack has been remodelled in the 20th century. This room contains largely late 19th or early 20th-century fitted cupboards and a four-panel door in a late 18th or early 19th-century moulded architrave, with plank doors or interwar panel doors elsewhere. In the roof space, a side purlin roof with raking struts and a proportion of replaced softwood rafters includes a closed truss with lath and plaster panels between the central and outer bays, an internal stack of narrow red-brown brick, and closely spaced boards to the first-floor ceiling of the innermost bay. A large internal stack rises through the south-west facing roof slope, rectangular on plan with grouped square flues and a moulded collar.

The southern bay of the main range has been extended by half a bay beyond a former external transverse wall of the timber-framed structure that is now internal. The north-western bay of the rear range is possibly of later date. A lean-to single-storey outshut stands against the northern wall, abutting the plot to the north.