C18 brick building with C19 public house frontage.

An historic analysis at Historic England Level 2 was carried out by Leigh Alston in January 2019 of 14 Magdalen Street, to inform and accompany an application for Listed Building Consent. The tiled front range contains a butt-purlin roof of the early- to mid-18th century, but the rest of its fabric is almost completely hidden and may be older: it is currently unclear whether an exposed section of late-medieval roof-plate in the back wall is in situ or re-used. The interior has been altered almost beyond recognition, most notably in 1999 when permission was granted for the removal of numerous ground-floor walls to create an open-plan layout incorporating a new extension that filled the former inn yard to the rear. However the historic layout can be fully understood with reference to two sets of architects’ plans dating from 1879 and 1927 (figures 13-15). Apart from the remodelling of its projecting bay windows in 1879 the present facade remains unchanged from the mid-19th century and includes a good Victorian shop window with a rare set of original decorative cast-iron ventilation panels (now blocked internally by a new staircase of 1999). This shop was built as part of a slate-roofed brick extension to the earlier inn that included a new bedroom and smoking room to the rear.<1>