20, Foss Street

No. 20 Foss Street is a shop with a house above, and a rear block that has flats over the shop. The rear block likely dates from the 17th century, with 19th-century alterations, while the front block probably has a 17th-century core and is older than the late 19th-century front, with some 20th-century modernization. The building features mixed construction, with the main window fronts made of plastered timber-framing and others of stone rubble. There is a stack in the party wall with rendered chimney shafts and some old pots, and the roofs are covered with slate.

The building is three storeys high, with the rear block containing attics. The late 19th-century front has two windows. The timber shop front has been partly modernized, featuring a recessed central doorway that is now open under a plain overlight leading to a central passage back to a 20th-century doorway. The fascia has large ornamental end brackets and a moulded cornice with a cast-iron crest that wraps around the base of the first-floor oriel window, which is canted and contains a large front horned four-pane sash window; there are two smaller sashes on the second floor. The eaves are plain, leading to a hipped roof.

The rear block faces north and has irregular fenestration, including some undistinguished 20th-century casements, as well as several 19th-century twelve-pane sashes, including a row of three at the first-floor level, a pair of three/six-pane sashes at the second-floor level, and an eight-pane sash in the gable. The rear of the front block's side wall also has twelve-pane sashes on the upper floors.

Inside, most of the ground floor has been modernized in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the rear of the right shop, which is under the rear block, exposes joists of large scantling that appear to be from the 17th century.

Foss Street follows the line of a medieval dam that included a tidal mill. The mill pool was filled in and developed around 1820-1830, although houses along Foss Street were built from the 17th century onwards.