The Royal Oak is the oldest building in the Market Place. Most of the others seem to be early 1800s when there was a great deal of rebuilding. The Royal Oak is older as you can tell from the steepness of roof, which is steep enough to have been thatched.  The chimney is axial – i.e. not at the gable ends.  In the later 17th century, chimneys would be at the gable ends. In this building, the chimney stack is in line with the door. It had a ’lobby’ entry so you turn left or right into the main rooms.  (With gable end stacks you go in via an entry hall with a staircase because there is no chimney in the way: a radical change of house plan mid-18th century.)  The roof is about the same height as the front.  A small blocked window shows the original window size.  All of this indicates a building of between 1700 and 1750 but which could be even earlier. There is a large chimney stack at the rear also. The front shows decorative eaves and cornice (the decorative ‘dogtooth’ brickwork beneath the eaves). Originally there would have been no gutters. The tumbled gable ends were (like pantiles) developed in the Low Countries. It means that you do not have a chopped brick end exposed to the elements. The raised gable stops the wind getting under the thatch or tiles. There are smaller windows upstairs which have been renewed in the early 1800s, slender glazing margin bars replacing leaded lights and another blocked arch downstairs. It was probably a big farmhouse or possibly a showy grand house before it was an inn. At the time it was built, all the farm houses were in the village. The downstairs windows were replaced again in the Victorian or Edwardian period, probably when it became pub.  The door case is from about 1800-1820; the door has been replaced and would have had a fanlight – an overlight – so there was some renovation in the first half of 19th century and then again later in the century, certainly before 1914. To the left of the Royal Oak you will see The Old Shop.