Royal Oak Public House

The Royal Oak Public House, likely originally a house, dates from the late medieval period with a rear wing added in the 19th century or earlier. The front wall is roughcast, while the side walls and probably the front and rear walls are made of stone rubble. The building has a slated roof, with the left gable featuring stepped stone coping and the base of a stone chimney on the ridge, while the right gable has a 19th-century red-brick chimney.

The structure is two rooms wide and one room deep, reflecting its medieval plan, although the ground floor rooms have been combined. The right-hand room may have been a former open hall, and there is a later rear wing to the right. The building is two storeys high and has two windows wide, with late 20th-century metal and wood casements. A 19th-century door is located to the left, featuring a flush lower panel and a brass letterbox, with the upper part likely being originally glazed.

On the ground floor to the right, there is a chamfered and step-stopped beam, probably inserted in the 16th or 17th century. The upper floor left gable wall has a late medieval or early post-medieval corbelled fireplace, which is now plastered over. At the rear, in the angle with the rear wall, there is a rounded recess that may have been a former garderobe, similar to one at No. 33 North Street, which was demolished in 1970.

The front roof retains nearly all of its original trusses and purlins, featuring four arch-braced trusses, including two gable-trusses, with slightly cambered collars, plain arch-braces with open spandrels, butt-purlins, and visible ashlar-posts (one sole-plate is visible). The two middle trusses have lost their collars and braces, and the western truss has lost one principal rafter. A tie-beam truss is located in the centre with wattle and daub on the eastern side, showing some blackening that is not definitively from an open hearth. Additionally, in the rear backyard wall, there is a late medieval or early post-medieval stone corbelled fireplace, likely re-set and positioned high up.