The Maltsters House

The Maltsters House is a shop premises with domestic accommodation above and behind, likely dating from the mid to late 17th century, with alterations around the early 19th century. The front is built of stone rubble with roughcast to a timber stud front wall and deeply coved eaves. The roof is dry slate with gabled ends, retaining some original crested ridge tiles. A range at the rear is constructed of whitewashed granite rubble.

The original layout is not entirely clear, but appears to have originally comprised two heated rooms on the ground floor, accessed from a central lobby. Each room had a fireplace on a shared stack on the rear wall, which also served a fireplace without an oven in a large room in a parallel range at the rear. A carriageway is located to the right. The building is two storeys high, with a three-window front. The first floor has three late 20th-century windows, likely replacing earlier sash windows. The ground floor features two late 20th-century bowed shop windows, with a smaller one on the left, and a 19th-century moulded doorframe supporting a flat canopy over a 20th-century glazed door. The carriageway has plank doors set on a horizontal slide, with a rough timber lintel above.

Inside, the ground floor has a timber stud partition dividing the two rooms, with the left-hand room being smaller. Each room features a corner fireplace within a splayed granite stack, with large, unchamfered timber lintels and granite rubble jambs. A later, somewhat cramped, framed staircase is located in the left-hand corner of the left-hand room, leading to a first-floor room. The right-hand room has a doorway leading to the large room in the rear range, with a large fireplace (without an oven) on the rear stack, which also serves the front fireplaces. This fireplace has a large timber lintel with run-out stops and granite rubble jambs. A well-preserved mid to late 17th-century staircase is located at the rear of the right-hand front room, featuring a closed string, turned balusters and newels with ball finials, a square-section handrail with a deep roll moulding, and a replaced top balustrade. The room over the carriageway is unheated. The first-floor rooms each have a corner fireplace on the rear stack, with unchamfered timber lintels, arched granite jambs, and rounded interiors. Two 6-panel doors are on the first floor, with a large fielded panel at the top and bottom, and two smaller middle panels side by side. The roof has nailed trusses with later reinforcing. This is a notable later 17th-century town house, reputedly a maltster's house.