26 JOHN STREET

26, St John Street is an iconic 15th century oak timber-framed building, internationally and long renowned as the home of Ashbourne’s Gingerbread Shop.

 

It was granted Grade II listed status for three key reasons: its architectural interest (a rare surviving example of a speculative commercial building of the medieval period); the legibility of its medieval plan form as three small units and its historic development in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the survival of a significant amount of historic fabric including most of its original box frame construction with its associated jettied first floor and close studding and roof structure of four closed roof trusses.
 

The use of dendrochronology (a scientific method of tree-ring dating) proves that the timbers used in its construction were felled in 1492. Whilst the original function of the building is not known, the surviving historic building fabric suggests it would originally have been three separate shop units with living accommodation above. 

 

It was later believed to have been an inn up until the Napoleonic Wars between 1803 and 1815 when it became a bakery. Legend tells us that the recipe for Ashbourne’s famous gingerbread was given to the baker by a French prisoner of war, billeted in Ashbourne during the Napoleonic Wars, and the popular biscuit continued to be on sale at the premises for over 200 years.