45 And 47, St Mary Street

House, probably originally a church house, now a hotel. The building dates from the 14th to 16th centuries with later alterations and additions. It is constructed of rendered rubblestone with exposed limestone rubble to the ground floor. The building features pantile roofs and a projecting stack to the gable of the forward-facing left wing which is brick above the ridge.

No. 45, on the left, is an early 19th-century addition. It is built of painted brick with a stone coping to the parapet and painted stone stepped voussoirs to the flat arches of the first-floor windows. A door to the right has been bricked up. The building has a double-depth plan with a long rear wing and is 2 storeys high with a 3-window range. The first floor has 6/6-pane sash windows, and there is a restored 19th-century shopfront at ground level. The rear wing is built in Flemish bond brick in 3 stages. The first stage has a 3/3-pane sash window to the centre of the first floor, the second has a plate glass sash window with margin panes to the right, and there are 2 brick lateral stacks and one to the rear gable end.

No. 47 has two 20th-century two-light casement windows at eaves level to the sides of the main set-back block. The right return of the forward wing has a 6/6-pane sash window above a large projecting window with small panes and a shallow pantile roof, probably dating to the 20th century. In the angle to the left of the main block is a lean-to porch with a 20th-century door; a panel of exposed wattle-and-daub to the right return of this porch was probably the entrance to a through-passage. Another 20th-century door to the right of centre is set beneath a wide early 19th-century trellised and gabled porch. On the forward left wing, flanking the stack at ground floor are 2-light stone-mullioned windows, the one to the right being blocked.

The interior of the main block retains significant medieval structural elements. The 3 bays of the 14th-century main block have exposed trusses. The left-hand truss is arched-braced with wind braces to the centre front and one to the rear left. The trusses of the right-hand bay and the dividing beam are drilled to receive wattle-and-daub uprights, indicating 2 former rooms, possibly at the former service end. To the rear right corner is a small blocked diagonal stack.

The 2 ground-floor rooms are of particular note. The room to the right has an open fire with a shallow Tudor-arched timber lintel. There is studding to a former partition from the room to the left and a chamfered beam to the left with a bar stop to the front end and a plain stop to the rear end. In the room to the left, to the left of the door, is a 17th-century closed-string staircase with heavy turned balusters that are square to the top and base, a moulded rail, and raised and fielded panels below.

The upper room of the forward left wing is a 2-bay space with an arch-braced truss. The fireplace to the front wall has a massive stone lintel with moulded stops to the jambs and a 19th-century cast-iron grate.

The room below the upper room of the forward left wing has a hollow-chamfered cross-beam and 17th-century panelling to the ceiling and left-hand wall. The entrance from the rear is flanked by fluted and cabled pilasters with large moulded plinths, Ionic and egg-and-dart capitals over foliate friezes and cornices. The open fireplace to the front wall has a slightly arched stone lintel with splayed sides and Ham Hill stone jambs that do not quite reach the lintel. To the left is a late 16th-century or early 17th-century alcove with a shell to the top covering a blocked window. To the right is a 2-light stone-mullioned window with leaded glazing.