King Charles Public House (Part)

The King Charles Public House (part) is a timber-framed building, originally dating to the late 16th century. It was converted to an inn around 1770 and altered in the early 19th century, with a restoration occurring in the mid-20th century. The building has a two-room plan with a central entry and a brick rear wing, and has been extended. The front is characterised by close studding to the first floor and gables, with sections rendered and slate-hung, a tarred plinth, brick lateral stacks, and a tiled roof. The symmetrical front features paired gables with barge-boards, a shallow-jettied first floor, and a large exterior stack on the left-hand side. The central doorway, dating to the early 19th century, has pilasters supporting a wide pediment, and a six-panel door with glazed upper panels. The ground floor has wide, shallow bays with four- and five-light mullion and transom windows. The first floor is close-studded, with rounded joist ends and jowled corner posts, and includes 16th-century four- and five-light gabled oriels with cyma-curved bases, set within plate-glass casements. A centrally set slate-hung gable is recessed, with a lateral stack on the right. The interior of the right-hand room retains a moulded late 16th-century lateral beam continuous with a moulded cornice and wall plate. The left-hand room contains re-set 17th-century panelling as a dado and fire surround, with 19th-century match boarding above a 18th-century box cornice, and a horizontal sliding sash window to the rear. A 20th-century staircase leads to the first floor of the Kinges Halle. The building was recorded to contain moulded spandrels to the foot of roof trusses and original false hammer-beam trusses in two first-floor rooms. A fireplace is thought to be part of an early kitchen, incorporated into the house as part of extensive 19th-century remodelling. The building is one of a small number of timber-framed houses surviving in the town, and the only one with a framed front facing the street.