Building record DBN 205 - 37-39 Gracechurch Street

Nos. 37 and 39 Gracechurch Street occupy the two halves of a grade II-listed 17th century timber-framed and thatched cottage. Until the town’s 20th century expansion the property probably lay outside its urban boundary. The timber frame was built in two phases, but with very little interval between them. No. 37 to the left forms the two-bay hall of a modest 1½ storey house of circa 1620 which extends to just 13 feet 6 inches in internal width; it probably possessed only two cells with an external gable chimney and a pair of service rooms flanking the hall. The original chimney was demolished some 10 or 20 years after its construction when a new chimney bay and a second hall were added to the right to form an independent, semi-detached tenement (no. 39). The chimney bay was just 4 feet in length and contained a timber-framed chimney with two identical wattle-and-daub flues that heated both halls. The timber-framing appears to rest on contemporary brickwork which rises from the ground to the height of the hall ceilings and contained two back-to-back fireplaces (one of which was later rebuilt). Each flue terminates in a platform near the ridge that supported an external shaft of brickwork, and the timber chimney was therefore confined to the upper storey where it was invisible to passers-by and visitors alike. Its structure escaped the recent fire completely intact, and represents a rare and historically important survival (S1).