22 High Street

The building at 22 High Street is a house dating back to around 1500, with alterations from the 16th and 17th centuries and further changes and extensions in the mid-19th century. It is constructed of regular coursed limestone with a longstraw thatched and pantile roof, and features brick stacks.

The original layout was a three-unit, cross-passage plan, modified likely in the late 16th century with the addition of a smoke hood within the cross passage. The left-hand end was rebuilt as a parlour wing, probably in the late 16th or early 17th century. The stack at the right-hand gable end is likely later, evidenced by blocked windows. The smoke hood was likely removed in the mid-17th century when a floor was inserted into the hall, and a stack was added at the upper end of the hall, along with a new doorway creating a baffle entry, visible as straight joints. The upper right-hand end was rebuilt with a lean-to roof, likely in the mid-19th century, and a wing was added at a right angle to the rear.

The front of the house has three windows on the first floor and four on the ground floor; these are mostly 19th-century two- and three-light wooden casements with wooden lintels. The second ground-floor window from the left formerly served as the cross passage entrance, with straight joints visible beneath. The right-hand ground-floor window was previously a baffle entry, also with straight joints. A tall two-light mezzanine window is situated in the altered right-hand end. The left-hand gable end contains ground- and first-floor small-paned two-light wooden casements to the right. One ground-floor window replaces a doorway, and one first-floor window is a late 20th-century insertion. Blocked central windows are visible on each floor, also indicated by straight joints and lintels. The main entrance is now located in the right-hand end wall.

Inside, the hall retains a two-bay, smoke-blackened medieval roof. It features a raised cruck truss with arched-braced collar, butt purlins, and a diagonally-set ridge piece. There are remains of blackened woven and straw rope fixings from the original and later rethatchings. The remains of a timber-framed smoke hood with wattle and daub infill panels, smoke-blackened on the inside, are also present. Above the rebuilt lower end is a two-bay roof, probably from the early 17th century, with notched-lap collar trusses and wind braces. The hall also features a sawn-off bressumer supporting a shaped wooden corbel. The hall includes chamfered spine beams and joists and a 17th-century stone fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel. The left-hand end room has a chamfered transverse beam and joists, along with a fireplace with reused moulded stone jambs.