The Green Man

The Green Man is a hotel created from three adjacent properties on Market Street, now unified internally but retaining distinct architectural identities reflecting their separate origins and dates of construction.

The northernmost building, 17 Market Street, was formerly known as The Fleece and has possibly late medieval origins. It was re-fronted in the mid-18th century but retains evidence of its earlier timber-framed structure, including wall-posts, tie-beams, rails and wall-plates. The original plan appears to have been a through-passage arrangement with the main stack positioned behind the passage. It is a two-storey building of four bays with a large, tall ridge stack rising from the second bay from the north, with that bay being blind. At the eaves there is a slightly projecting wall-plate with simple ovolo moulding that forms the lintels to the upper windows. All windows have simple projecting stone sills. The northernmost bay contains a sash window set off-centre to the south in the position of the former door, with slight scarring indicating where the original stone door case stood. To its north is a narrow sash window. The other windows are regularly proportioned sash windows with exposed sash boxes, set back from the wall face and fitted with replacement six-over-six pane horned sashes. Slight scarring below the ground-floor southern window shows where a cellar window was blocked, visible in early photographs. The roof's ridge line is irregular, suggesting the roof structure may be early in date.

Internally, 17 Market Street is the most significant. The ground floor features a large inglenook fireplace with stone jambs and rear wall. The reveals are widely chamfered and incorporate a roll moulding; the base stones appear to be reused capitals featuring three palm leaves and may be 12th-century work. The bressummer beam is a substantial late medieval moulded timber showing housings suggesting it is a reused tie beam. Above it is a row of re-set 16th-century timber panels. Within the inglenook is a stone fireplace with a copper hood and an 18th-century hour-glass hob grate. The room extends for two full bays with a substantial chamfered ceiling beam supporting exposed hardwood joists. The original entrance passage at the rear now forms toilets with modern partitions and fittings of no special interest. The first floor is divided into two rooms by the massive chimney stack above the inglenook. A small 18th-century fireside cupboard on butterfly hinges survives in the main room.

The central property, 15 Market Street, dates to the early 19th century. It is a two-storey building with an attic, comprising two bays. At ground floor level is a large canted bay window, enlarged from a domestic-scaled sash window in the mid-20th century. To its right is a large double-doored entrance with a simple doorcase and projecting canopy dating to after 1960. The two first-floor windows are regularly positioned with horned two-over-two sashes, wedge lintels and projecting stone cills. Above are two large mid-20th-century roof dormers. The building is stone-built to the rear with a gabled stone range at the back, now encased in 20th-century ground-floor extensions with an enlarged 20th-century window to the first-floor gable. Internally, the building retains an early 19th-century closed-string staircase, possibly with surviving stick balusters behind later boarding on the upper floors, though this was remodelled on the ground floor in the early 20th century. Fireplaces and other period features have been lost, and there is evidence that upper-floor room divisions have been altered with later partitions of no special interest. In the south gable wall within the attic storey, an alcove marks the position of a former window blocked when 13 Market Street was constructed.

The southern property, 13 Market Street, the original Green Man Hotel, dates to the late 19th century. It is a four-bay, three-storey building with a simple attic sill band, coped gables and end stacks. At first-floor level above the entrance is ironwork for a pub sign with decorative scrolled bracing. Just above are two bottonée-cruciform pattress plates (crosses with arms terminating in clover-leaf shapes) for tie bars at second-floor level. Upper windows are plate glass horned sashes. The ground-floor openings have been sympathetically remodelled since circa 1960: a large, traditionally detailed bow-fronted window replaces the original central pair of domestic-scaled windows; the entrance door has a simple timber door case replacing a rounded canopy shown in early photographs; and the northernmost bay window is now a six-over-six pane sash in place of the earlier plate glass window. The southernmost bay contains a passage through to the rear. Internally, features are largely reconfigured and refitted in the 20th century. The bar areas are panelled, including oak joinery, but this panelling is 20th-century in date.

All three buildings have rendered front elevations with brick stacks. 17 Market Street and 15 Market Street have pan-tiled roofs; 13 Market Street has a Welsh slate roof. Rear elevations are mainly obscured, showing rubble limestone to 15 Market Street and brick to the remainder. The ground floor has been extensively opened up internally, with a wide opening through the south gable of 17 Market Street connecting to 15 Market Street, which is itself linked through to 13 Market Street.

Much altered and extended brick-built rear ranges to all three properties are not included in the listing. The mapped listing extent has not been produced from a detailed measured survey and should be used for indication purposes only.