The Wheelhouse Restaurant

The Wheelhouse Restaurant is a house that has been converted into a restaurant, likely dating from the early 17th century and remodeled in the early 20th century. It is constructed of stone rubble, rendered above the ground floor on the right-hand side and rendered on the front. The gable end was slate-hung in the 1970s, and it features a slate roof with gable ends and projecting side lateral chimney stacks.

The original layout of the building is uncertain due to significant alterations, but it may have originally had a three-room and cross-passage plan, with the front facing Fore Street, now the right-hand side elevation. The inner room on the left was possibly unheated, while the hall was heated by a projecting rear lateral stack. Many partitions have been removed, and part of the lower end, including the front lateral chimney stack, has been incorporated into Number 11 Fore Street.

The building is two stories tall, with a regular single-window front and an entrance in the gable end. There is a partly glazed 20th-century door on the ground floor, a 19th-century 20-pane hornless sash window on the first floor, and a 12-pane sash window in the gable end. The side elevation facing Fore Street features a circa 19th-century shop window flanked by incised pilasters, a blocked door to the right, and asymmetrically placed early 19th-century sashes on the first floor.

Inside, the original partitions and the floor above the probable inner room have been removed. The ceiling beams above the hall are chamfered with straight cut stops, and the hall fireplace has a chamfered timber lintel with scroll stops and a cloam oven. The room above the probable original inner room features a high-quality plaster ceiling from the late 17th or early 18th century, with raised and fielded panels and a heavy moulded cornice. The roof structure was not fully accessible during the inspection, and the feet of the principals are boxed in.