Homestead and Barbican Cottage

Homestead and Barbican Cottage is a broad frontage house located on Mere Castle Street, dating from the 17th century or earlier, with significant modifications made in the 19th and late 20th centuries. The building features exposed rubble in courses, which was formerly rendered, along with a concrete tile roof, a large brick stack, and a cropped stone stack at the ridge. It is one of the earliest surviving properties on this street and likely originally had a three-room cross passage layout with the main stack and stair to the left, although the last bay on the right may have been added later.

The house has two storeys and an irregular arrangement of windows. On the ground floor, there is a flush panelled door far left, opposite the main fireplace, followed by a canted bow shop window with a 1:3:1 pane configuration leading to a flat roof, a 20th-century door, two four-pane sash windows, and a large 19th-century canted shop front featuring a stall-board, fascia supported by consoles, and a glazed door with a transom light. The first floor includes two sets of two-light small-paned 20th-century casements, two similar windows with a horizontal bar, and a four-pane sash window above the shop front. The cropped stack is located far left, and there is a tall brick stack to the left of the final bay.

The interior has been substantially modified, with no original roof remaining except for the remnants of 17th or 18th-century principals, and there is some evidence of a winder stair in the front left. Overall, the property shows increasingly mutilated remains of a very interesting structure.