4, High Street

This building on High Street in Wells is a house with a shop, displaying a complex construction history spanning from the late 15th or 16th century to the mid-20th century. The rear of the property retains fabric from the late medieval period, with some 17th-century elements in the front range, but the visible facade dates from the mid-20th century. The building is constructed of rubble, some timber-frame, and rendered brickwork, covered by a slate roof.

The property is a narrow, three-story unit with a basement, containing a winder staircase to the rear right and a small yard to the rear. To the rear, a shallow range runs parallel to High Street with a gable facing east, and this range interlocks with the adjacent building at number 6. This section of the building has been substantially altered, with walls and structural elements removed.

The front of the building features a mid-20th century shop-front with a recessed doorway and deep fascia on the ground floor. The first floor has a wide, nine-light steel casement window, and the second floor a similar six-light casement. A rendered parapet with false pilasters and dentils tops the facade. The rear gable has an early 19th-century 16-pane sash window, and there’s a two-light casement window on the rear main wall.

The ground floor front room lacks early structural features. The rear room is smaller and contains one chamfered and stopped spine beam, suspended on a stirrup to the right where earlier walling has been removed. A late 18th-century fielded panel door leads to the basement. A late 19th-century dog-leg staircase has a partial diagonal stick balustrade with turned newel posts; a slender cast-iron column supports a beam on the upper landing.

On the first floor, approximately 800mm from the front wall, a full-width chamfered beam has lamb's-tongue stops. The rear room retains substantial timber framing, although part of the structure was removed to insert a thick wall, which has since been partially removed. Two substantial structural posts remain in the party wall, one with a wide, rough chamfer to a run-out stop carrying a broad beam built into the rear party wall, which now incorporates a 20th-century fireplace. The centre beam also features large square stops on the left and run-out stops on the right, incorporated into the rear wall. The upper flight of stairs has been removed.

The second floor front lacks early features, and the roof is of 20th-century design. The rear room, accessed via a wide-plank ledged door, contains a roof with two trusses; the third truss was removed with the rebuilding of the gable wall. The roof exhibits cambered collars, two purlins with run-out stops, and chamfered wind-braces, with one outer brace missing.

The building contains significant historic fabric and may have been built as part of the adjoining property at number 6, with an unusual relationship to the building's plan.