14 Westgate Street

14 Westgate Street is an early-18th-century house with a shop on the ground floor and accommodation above, accessed by a rear stair turret. Behind it stands a 15th-century range with a 16th-century addition. The building has undergone alterations in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

The early-18th-century house is built of brick with stone quoins on the principal elevation. The rear range is timber-framed, though its elevations were substantially rebuilt in brick in the 19th century. The hipped roofs of the 18th-century range are slate-tiled, while the gabled roofs of the rear range are covered in plain clay tiles.

The plan comprises an 18th-century front range of two bays and a three-bay 15th-century rear range. The ground floor of the 18th-century range has been opened up, with a short flight of stairs to the rear, left of a truncated chimney stack, providing access to the principal first-floor room of the rear range and a smaller single-bay room at right angles. The ground floor of the rear range forms a separate shop unit accessed from the side lane. Between the 18th-century house and the rear range stands an early-18th-century stair turret.

The principal elevation is three storeys of two bays. A 21st-century shopfront occupies the ground floor. The upper floors are red brick with raised and chamfered stone quoins and a timber crowning modillion cornice with short returns to either side. The first and second storeys have two mid-19th-century two-over-two sash windows (replacing 18th-century sashes) within original segmental-arched window openings with triple-raised keystones, moulded stone architraves, and projecting stone sills on moulded brackets. A central 19th-century hipped roof dormer with a casement window sits on the hipped roof.

The three-storey north-west side elevation has a first-floor lateral stack to the right and a staggered arrangement of windows to each floor on the left. The ground-floor 20th-century window sits beneath a 19th-century segmental-arched brick head. A pair of 18th-style six-over-six sash windows occupy the first floor, and a 20th-century cross window, probably replacing an 18th-century window of the same type, is on the second floor. The three-storey gabled rear elevation has an 18th-century six-over-six sash window to the second floor and a 20th-century inserted square window to the attic. The rendered stair turret to the left has a hipped roof with an additional hipped roof extension to attic level.

The side wall of the two-storey rear range was rebuilt in the 19th century. Its ground floor has three 20th-century windows and a door; the first floor has a pair of 19th-century tripartite windows beneath cambered heads. The 19th-century rear wall forms a parapet; behind are the gabled roofs of the 15th and 16th-century range.

The interior of the rear range reveals 15th-century roof structure beneath a 17th-century plastered ceiling, comprising arch-braced collars and ovolo-moulded principal rafters on the south-east side (the north-west side has been truncated). The end trusses are closed, incorporating the tie beam and one surviving wind brace to the north-east corner of the side wall. The two intermediate trusses have timber pendants to the centre of the collar. An elaborate early-17th-century plasterwork scheme decorates the ceiling, skeiling, overmantel, and spaces between tie beams and collars of the closed end trusses. The ceiling comprises an enriched broad rib design of three geometric symmetrical sections. The skeiling features a foliated arcade of four-centred arches supported on Ionic columns, with a different stylised plant depicted beneath each arch, including the Tudor rose, thistle, oak, and fleur-de-lis. The closed trusses at either end employ a different spiral design of plant stems, foliage, and strapwork. Evidence in the surviving plasterwork indicates this scheme extended to the north-west skeiling before it was truncated. The overmantel of the inserted stack has a central wreath surrounding a coat of arms, flanked by half figures (Terms) emerging from columns, with additional swags and fruit decoration. Small-square panelling was added to the wall right of the chimney stack and to the north-east end of the principal room and the adjacent smaller room. Tongue-and-groove panelling and additional panelling to the smaller room are 20th-century additions. The roof trusses to the adjacent single-bay room comprise queen strut collar and tie beam end trusses with wind braces to the bay, with intermediate upright posts and infill panels visible to the south-east wall.

The early-18th-century open-well staircase to the rear has Doric column newel posts, a closed string, turned balusters with tapered columns, and a ramped handrail. From the second floor to the attic, the handrail is tenoned into plain square newel posts rather than ramped over, and the turned balusters have longer unturned blocks, suggesting 19th-century addition. The upper floors of the 18th-century range feature moulded cornices, 18th-century joinery including window and door architraves and window shutters, and some fireplace surrounds. The second floor is accessed from the landing via a round archway supported on Tuscan pilasters. Two blocked doorways with 18th-century architraves on the first-floor landing formerly provided access to the first floor of the 15th and 16th-century rear range.

Both ranges have cellars. Evidence indicates a medieval cellar beneath the 18th-century cellar of the front range. The brick and stone cellar beneath the 15th-century range comprises two transverse barrel-vaulted rooms.