20 And 21, High Street

A pair of houses on High Street, Twerton, dating largely from the 17th century with alterations in the 19th century. The houses are built of squared and coursed rubble with a Roman tile roof. They are three storeys high, each with one window. Number 20 has twelve-pane sashes in flush ashlar surrounds with sills at the first and second floors. The ground floor has a paired twelve-pane sash within a recessed ovolo moulded mullion and surround to the right of a four-panel door, which is set under a flat stone hood on brackets. Number 21 has a two-light casement window at the second floor above a plain sash, and a plain sash within a paired stone-mullioned casement like the adjacent house, with a flush three-panel 19th-century door to the right. A weathered stone string course runs above the ground floor openings. Each gable end has an ashlar stack, and there is a straight joint in the masonry to the left.

The interior of number 20 features a splendid 10-foot wide inglenook fireplace with chamfered supporting stone and a large lintel. It also contains a central chamfered beam, a pair of Tudor arched stone fireplaces, and a vertical panelled partition in the rear room. Number 21 has a mullioned front window, potentially dating from around 1667, and a centre beam running front to back. Historical research suggests the houses are much older than the 18th century, and the presence of mullioned windows, chamfered beams, and the wide inglenook fireplace indicate this. While they may have been rebuilt externally during the 18th century, their fronts have suffered from excessive repointing.