5 Market Street

5 Market Street

A cement-rendered stone building under tiled roofs, comprising what were originally two separate properties now connected and subdivided into commercial and residential use.

The building has a long rectangular plan running west to east. The west gable end faces onto Market Street with a south wing joining it to the east end which fronts onto North Street. The upper floors are set around a central terrace.

The Market Street elevation is of two bays with two storeys and an attic. It is flanked by stucco pilasters that rise to the attic floor. The ground floor has a modern shop front with a large full-height central casement window, a partially-glazed entrance to the left and a similar door leading to the upper-storey flats on the right. The upper storeys each have two sash windows with flush frames. The first-floor windows are eight-over-eight sashes with rectangular panes. The second-floor windows are smaller with square panes, also arranged eight-over-eight. The gable is topped by a pediment with a decorative modillion dentilled cornice. Within the pediment is a Venetian window with Gothic Y-tracery glazing bars within the central light. At the junction between the two former houses, the upper storeys are set around a central terrace. The walls around this terrace are all pebbledash rendered, with 20th-century windows comprising a mixture of timber casements and uPVC.

The North Street elevation is of two storeys and two bays wide. The ground floor is largely a late-20th-century rebuild with a glazed shop front and an entrance to the right, and to the first floor, above a panel of timber cladding, is a full-width single-glazed timber-framed window.

The ground floor throughout serves as a shop premises with an open-plan sales room in the western part and a connecting store room with separate toilet in the east part. The ceiling beams in the western part are clad in plasterboard which may mask earlier timber beams. The upper floors consist of three flats accessed via an external door on the east side of the building leading into a communal hallway with a late-20th-century entrance stairway. The first floor of the western half (Flat 2) could not be inspected. The floor above (Flat 3) retains some moulded coving above the entrance door. The eastern end (Flat 1) does not retain any historic fittings. Six and four-panel doors are found throughout the building; these all have modern door handles and most appear to be modern replacements or have been relocated from elsewhere. The collar-beam roof in the western half retains a good proportion of 17th and early-18th-century timbers, including three large pegged principal trusses, purlins, braces and rafters. The roof over the connecting south wing between the two former houses also retains some historic roof carpentry including a pegged principal truss and purlins. The roof over the North Street side consists of a collar rafter with tie beam; one of the purlins has been reused and the other is a replacement.