8 and 10, Town Head

This is a mid-17th century house, later altered in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and divided into two separate dwellings. The building is constructed of gritstone rubble with a graduated stone slate roof. It has two storeys and originally three bays, with the central bay projecting forward as a gabled wing. Quoins are present. The left bay has a doorway and a casement window to the right on each floor, all with plain surrounds, and an end stack to the left. The central bay features recessed chamfered mullion windows: a single-light window to the ground floor and an altered three-light window to the first floor on the left. There is an inserted window to the first floor right. The gable has bulbous kneelers and gable coping, topped by a large corniced ashlar stack. A chamfered quoined surround features on the left return to the doorway, with a 20th-century window in an altered 17th-century opening to the right, and a two-light recessed chamfered mullion window to the first floor with a missing mullion. The right bay has an inserted doorway to the left and a three-light recessed chamfered mullion window to the right, both with drip moulds; a similar window is present to the first floor, along with a corniced stack to the left. The eaves of the left bay have been raised. The rear elevation has a random arrangement of windows; bays 2 and 3 have small 17th-century windows while bay 1 contains larger 18th and 19th-century openings. The interior was not inspected during a recent survey but is reported to contain an original fireplace and a 1625 datestone. The building is described in I. Goldthorpe’s 1988 booklet, One Hundred Things to see on a walk through Grassington.