17, Market Place

No. 17 Market Place is a house with a shop, dating from around 1453, built as part of the "New Works" by Bishop Bekynton. It has been modified in the late 18th century and again in the 19th century. The building is rendered with ashlar lining and is colourwashed, featuring a Welsh slate roof behind a parapet and a brick chimney stack.

The exterior consists of three storeys with an attic and a single wide bay. The ground floor projects slightly and has a late 19th-century shop front with stone stallrisers, windows that have ornamental column jambs and rounded top corners, and panelled side pilasters with two console brackets supporting the fascia cornice on the left side. There is a central glazed door set in a very deep opening. The upper floors have lost their bay windows; instead, there is a composite sash window with 4+12+4 panes on the first floor, and a 12-pane sash window in a plain opening on the second floor, which cuts through the original medieval string course. A small hipped roof dormer is located behind the parapet on the right, with a stack to the right on a raised coped verge.

Inside, the ground floor features a four-compartment ceiling with moulded beams, although the rear wall has been completely breached, with much of the work beyond dating to the 19th century. The first floor has a two-compartment ceiling with some original timbers in the front half and a segmental arched recess in the eastern party wall. The rear wall contains a 15-pane sash window in a splayed opening. The upper stair, which is from the 20th century, includes a 12-pane sash window and a later casement in the stairwell, leading through a four-centred arched doorway to the second floor, which has a ceiled front room and a 9-pane sash window in the rear wall.

This building is part of an outstanding late medieval planned urban group.