26, Fore Street

26 Fore Street is a large attached house, originally two separate homes, dating from the early 18th century or possibly the late 17th century, with a roof structure from the 16th century. The building features dressed stone walls and a thatched roof with gable ends and stone gable copings. It has brick stacks, with 20th-century stacks on the left-hand gable and right-hand ridge, and an 18th-century stack on the right gable end.

The house is two storeys high with dormers and has five windows on the ground floor arranged as window-door-window-door-window. The ground floor windows have square-section stone mullions that are beaded, with three lights, while the first floor features two-light windows with three-light windows in the end bays, all dating from the 18th century. The iron casements have lead lights and are from the 18th or 19th century.

There are two front doorways located in bays two and four, each with stone architraves, pulvinated friezes, and large moulded cornices. The left doorway features a plank-and-muntin door with lead lights from the 20th century, while there is a stable-type plank door also from the 20th century.

Inside, the house has flagstone floors. The fireplace in the left-hand end wall has stone jambs that are straight-chamfered with stepped stops and a cambered wood lintel that has been reset. An elliptical arch is located beside the fireplace. The first-floor center front room has a plastered ceiling with four raised plasterwork rosettes, although one is missing. The window seats are panelled and date from the 18th century. The roof construction consists of three bays of smoke-blackened principals with two sets of through purlins and wind-bracing, with mortices for collars that are no longer present. A diagonal ridge-piece from the 16th century is also noted, while the rear range has 17th-century construction with butted through-purlins.