64 Westgate Street

64 Westgate Street is a former house, now in commercial use, dating from the late 15th or early 16th century with a late 18th or early 19th century front elevation. The building was extensively restored between 1993 and 1994.

The structure is timber-framed with a red-brick façade and clay tile roof. It is rectangular in plan, one bay wide and extending in length. The building rises three storeys with a cellar, beneath a pitched roof that terminates in a flat stone-coped parapet.

The principal elevation to the south features a late 20th century shopfront replicating a late 19th century example at ground floor level. On the upper floors, a single eight-over-eight pane sash window without horns (late 20th century replicating 19th century work) sits beneath a gauged brick voussoir lintel. The main elevation is partially obscured by the upper storey of 66 Westgate Street. The rear elevation, which is inaccessible, is believed to retain exposed square-panelled timber framing with late 20th century timber mullion windows replicating 17th century examples.

The ground floor interior displays late 20th century plasterboard wall linings to the north and matchboarding on the west wall, with square-panelled timber framing on the east wall marked by a jowl post indicating the building's original front. An east-west beam here is a late 20th century replacement. The shop window bay contains a late 20th century multi-pane timber-framed window and entrance door. Ceiling joists to the north are late 20th century replacements, though one substantial earlier chamfered beam runs east-west centrally, with earlier joists surviving in the front half. A narrow staircase, probably late 18th to early 19th century, is positioned centre-left. A small cellar is accessed via a late 20th century staircase at the rear-left. Within the cellar, substantial east-west cross beams and a further beam at 45 degrees partially support the floor above. The west and north walls contain rubble stone construction possibly dating to the 16th or 17th century or earlier, whilst other cellar walls are of 19th and 20th century brick and concrete block. The floor is covered with late 20th century quarry tiles.

The staircase rises to the first floor via a short dog-leg, featuring a late 20th century baluster. Square-panelled timber framing is exposed on the east wall, and two schemes of late 16th or early 17th century wall paintings survive on the upper timbers. The earliest comprises a plain red scheme on the wall timbers and the north face of the central east-west ceiling beam. A later, more elaborate scheme painted over this includes fruit on a diagonal brace to the left, a flower on the brace to the right, and a caryatid on the central stud, clearly intended to support the ceiling visually. Elsewhere on the first floor, some timber frame elements and ceiling joists are late 20th century replacements. The west wall shows the scar of a 19th century chimney breast, traces of which also appear on the second floor.

The staircase continues from the rear right of the first floor to the second floor. The timber frame is partially exposed on the east wall, with traces of black paint visible on the underside of a diagonal brace by the staircase. Jowl posts and diagonal braces survive on the north wall, but the western wall plate and other frame elements are late 20th century replacements. The roof structure is exposed, having been replaced in the late 20th century.