Westgate House

Westgate House is an end-terrace house dating from the 18th century. It is constructed of painted stucco with an imitation slate roof, moulded timber eaves, and a small rendered stack at the west end. The house is three storeys high and five bays wide, featuring a plinth, a first-floor stone sill course, channelled outer piers, and rusticated stone to the ground floor, with channelled rustication and a tooled stone plinth. Boxed eaves are present. The windows are plate glass, horned sashes. The second-floor windows are cambered headed, with the centre window set within a raised, shouldered surround featuring sill brackets. The long first-floor window is accentuated by a stucco architrave with panelled pilasters, a lintel, and a cornice resting on brackets. An unusually ornate 19th-century iron balcony with curving scrolls to the balustrade, supported by two pierced iron brackets, adorns the front. The ground floor features plain stucco window heads, interrupting the channelled rustication. A plain strip, equivalent to two courses of the channeling, runs above and below the first-floor sill course. Contemporary scrolled iron guards protect the windows. The recessed central doorway has an overlight and a hardwood three-panel door, with the top two panels arched. The windows have painted, tooled stone sills.

The right end wall lacks windows in the main gable, but a parallel rear range has a long stair-light to the left and one window on each floor to the right, one being a hornless 12-pane sash. The rear range has an eastern brick stack. Adjoining this is a long, two-storey former stable and coach-house range, now converted to flats, extending south and returning east to enclose a rear courtyard. The rear west wall is of painted rubble with four small, widely-spaced windows under the eaves, while the east side of the courtyard is painted rendered with 20th-century windows. The rear of the house is slate hung, three storeys high and two bays wide, with mostly modern windows. A two-storey stable and coach-house range, with painted stucco to the east and modern windows, is attached to the rear southwest and exhibits a short southeast return. The rear west wall, facing Long Entry, is constructed of painted rubble stone and features four small first-floor loft windows. A piece of projecting masonry near the north end may be of ancient origin.

The ground floor has been altered, with a dental surgery on the front and a partial opening into a shop at number 5. A wide opening, formerly connecting the front and back of the house, has been blocked and now incorporates two large, heavily carved acanthus brackets, likely dating from the late 17th or early 18th century. A rear entry now leads to the stair hall, which contains a good 19th-century staircase with four flights, a continuous curving rail, two balusters per tread (one turned, one spiral twisted), scrolled feet to the rail on the balusters around a bulbous cast-iron newel post marking the centre, and scrolled tread ends. At the foot of the staircase is an entrance to a cellar beneath the front room, featuring a modern ceiling and lime-plastered walls, along with two square-headed recesses on the east wall.