NHER 31520 (Building record) - Shingle House

L shaped building, very fine and ornate timber frame of about 1600, altered in 18th century, subdivided 19th and 20th century. Either constructed as two separate three cell two storey houses, or else east to west wing is subsidiary.
Now divided into four dwellings, wallpaintings remain in No.2.
See (S1) in file. (S2).
E.Rose (NLA) 19 March 1996.

Visit. Spring 2016
• Quality frame of fairly close studding medium scantling circa 1580
• Good clasped purlin roof with wind bracing
• Clear that the long range along the street is a different later build. But
• linked by a very curious insertion at ground floor level where a recessed timber-framed wall in both properties formed a kind of wide porch providing a covered access to both houses. No studwork to the front wall meaning that the porch arrangement was an early development which needs some more research.
• In the gable of shingle house there is a former very deep sill joined by a shouldered mortise-and-tenon indicating the former existence of an oriel window
• There is part of a plank-and-muntin screen with a painted inscription
• The screen creates a low end through passage linked to the afore-mentioned porch
• Fine axial stack with very good 3-centred brick arch if somewhat rebuilt with re-set voussoirs and a later timber beam above. (This type of shallow arch always has a timber beam above it but usually hidden from view. Here I imagine that the original burnt through)
• The service end faces onto the street and may have been a shop but frame altered in this area
• The present straight stair is not the original which would have been a winder beside the stack.