Guildhall and attached gate

A Grade I listed building constructed of red brick with ashlar dressings and an ashlar coped raised gable, with a roof covered in plain tiles. The structure forms a long narrow rectangle of two storeys with a pitched roof and lateral chimney stacks.

Exterior

The west gable end facing South Street features a central pointed doorway within a moulded ashlar arch, flanked by single three-light segmental arched windows with chamfered mullions. A continuous hoodmould runs over both doors and windows. Above a moulded first-floor band sits a five-light window with a pointed arch and fifteenth-century tracery, surmounted by a hoodmould with label stops. The gable has moulded coping and large finials, now decayed.

The south front comprises twelve irregular bays. From the west, these include a small single-light window with deeply chamfered surround and moulded hood, followed by a triangular-headed doorway, then four wooden cross casements with leaded lights and segmental arches, a small casement, and four further cross casements. The first floor contains eight irregularly spaced eighteen-paned unhorned sashes. The north front is a patchwork of different-coloured brick with a sill band interrupted by eighteen-paned unhorned sash windows.

Interior

The western end of the ground floor displays transverse beams supported on five rows of slender wooden Doric columns (three to each beam, with one at each end and one slightly north of centre). An arched opening at the end of this hall leads to the staircase. Beyond the enclosed staircase, upper-floor joists are visible, with transverse beams supported to the south on braces arched against uprights resting on stone corbels. To the north are two raised cells with iron-barred doors, beyond which lies a winder stair forming a discrete central section.

A wide opening marks the beginning of the kitchens, which contain three massive fireplaces (two to the north and one to the east wall). A stair to the first floor lies to the east of the north fireplaces. The roof structure, visible only at this eastern end, is a common rafter roof with crown post trusses to each bay. Each truss comprises a tie beam braced to posts and supporting a crown post braced to a crown plate, with down braces to the tie beam. The crown plate supports close-set collars connecting each pair of rafters, with raking struts above the collars.

A door south of a partition wall opens to an eighteenth-century polite room, ceiled over with a dentilled cornice. Four-panelled doors with moulded surrounds and open pediments mirror each other at either end. A fireplace with brackets, egg and dart, and foliated ornament features an overmantle with an open pediment. Fielded panelling around the room opens to the west to reveal a pair of fine linen-fold panelled doors to a muniment cupboard.

The adjoining court-room contains a tie beam, brace, and upright delicately painted with foliate decoration. Walls are panelled to shoulder height, with an area around the small winder stair surrounded on two and a half sides by a balustrade with turned posts. This stair provides direct access from the ground-floor cells.

The landing for the main stair, a wide single-flight closed-string staircase with a moulded ramped handrail and turned balusters, separates this room from the large west chamber. The balustrade continues beside the landing up to the entrance to the west chamber, accessed through double panelled doors and a panelled arch beneath the minstrels gallery. The gallery is reached by stairs in the north-east corner of the landing area and features a balustrade with turned balusters, below which is the wide central door flanked by two sliding doors to closets. These doors have six fielded panels and are set below segmental arches and flanked by pilasters.

The roof is open to the crown plate. The braces to the three tie beams appear to be supported on elaborately carved corbels depicting heads of people and beasts; these carvings are in fact wrapped around the ends of the braces and the small stone corbels upon which they rest. The wooden corbels came from St Botolph's Church, removed during the restoration of the roof and tower around 1929. The west end features the pointed arched window with stained glass in the upper tracery. Walls have high dado panelling with fielded panels and fitted benches, with two bolection-moulded fireplaces.

Subsidiary Features

Attached to the south of the west gable end is an early eighteenth-century style gate with a decorative overthrow.