Muzle Patch

Muzle Patch is a shop with living accommodation above, dating from around the mid-19th century. The building is rendered, likely from stone rubble, with a slate-hung rear wall. It has an asbestos slate roof with gabled ends featuring shaped bargeboards, and the west end is topped with a wooden spike finial. A rendered brick chimneystack is located over the rear wall.

The internal layout is not confirmed due to lack of inspection, but the ground floor appears to be occupied by a large shop that has windows across the front and the left-hand (east) side, with an entrance at the right (west) end leading to stairs for access to the accommodation above. To the right of the main range is a two-storey section that may represent the remnants of an earlier building.

The main range is three storeys high and features a symmetrical three-window façade. The ground floor includes a large mid-19th century double-fronted shop with plain pilasters and an entablature topped with a moulded cornice. Each shop window has eight large panes. The shop front extends around the left-hand (east) side with a carved cornice. There is a central doorway to the shop with a glazed and panelled door, a rectangular overlight, and pilasters that support shaped brackets for a bay window above the right-hand doorway to the house, which also has a rectangular overlight and a flat canopy on shaped brackets.

On the first floor, there are windows on the left and right with raised architraves and a moulded cornice on console brackets, along with a central splayed timber bay window featuring very thin corner shafts. The second floor has two windows with plain raised architraves. All windows are sashes with horizontal glazing bars only. There is one window on each floor on the left-hand (east) gable end, which has similar sashes and architraves.

The building occupies a prominent central position in the town, and its largely unaltered exterior, highlighted by a fine Victorian shop front, contributes significantly to the townscape.