46 High Street

No. 46 and the adjacent property, No. 47, are perhaps the oldest houses now standing in the High Street. They were built as a pair and probably date to c. 1520-50. They illustrate the introduction of a new type of house into the city, in which all the rooms are just one storey high, contrasting with the tall halls rising from ground floor to roof in the medieval houses of previous generations. The ornate and well-carpentered timber-framed frontage with its coving (out-curving timber, here carved with barber-pole ornament), and small carved figures, is shown in this coloured early 20th-century drawing by Endacott.

Acknowledgments: RAMMuseum