40,42 AND 44, ST JAMES'S STREET

A row of three cottages, originally a single house, dating to the 15th century, with significant alterations in the 17th and 19th centuries. The building is constructed of ham stone with ashlar dressings, and has a plain clay tiled roof set over stone slate base courses, with moulded coped gables. Brick and stone chimney stacks are present. The arrangement is irregular, with four bays overall.

Number 44, on the left (north) side, has a single bay with a 4-light, hollow-chamfered mullioned window on the ground floor, featuring 4-centre arched lights with incised spandrels in a wave-mould recess with a label. Above this is a 3-light window in a 20th-century gabled dormer. To its left is a chamfered, cambered doorway with a label and incised spandrels. The north gable has two matching 3-light mullioned windows, and a smaller 20th-century window, all with labels.

Number 42 also has a single bay and appears to be predominantly of 17th-century origin. It features a 4-light mullioned window below and a 3-light window above, both with rectangular leaded glazing. The upper window is set into the gable, which is crowned with a circular stone chimney stack. To the right is an ovolo-mould, cambered-arched doorway with a label.

Number 40 has a 3-light and a 2-light mullioned window above, without labels, and a 2-light and a 4-light window below. The 2-light window shares a label with a 19th-century cambered, chamfered-arched doorway; the 4-light window is of earlier design, with deep returns to the label. The south gable has two 2-light windows featuring late 15th/early 16th-century cinquefoil cusped lights, deep labels with headstops, and a later 2-light window.

The rear elevation is obscured, but includes a central gabled projection. The interior remains unseen. The building is believed to have been a parsonage and may have originally extended further east. In the 17th century, it was known as Higher House, a substantial dwelling.