The Guildhall

The Guildhall is a house, originally built around 1523 as a guildhall dedicated to the Trinity. It is a timber-framed building, with the frame exposed on the first floor, and the rest plastered, with some timber repairs. The exterior is finished with painted brick. The building features a late 17th-century ridge stack to the left-hand range and a tall side stack to the north range. The roof is covered with plain tiles and has parallel gables.

The building comprises two parallel east-west ranges, with the north range being shorter, united on the east elevation. A jetty returns along the south elevation, supported by an external bressumer. The main range consists of five close-studded timber-framed bays, marked on the side elevation by solid curved braces springing from damaged moulded capitals on the main posts. The original main entrance, in the second bay from the west, has a moulded wooden frame with carved spandrels forming a four-centred head, but is now blocked by a window. There are three original four-light windows, and one restored window with moulded mullions. Three horizontal sliding sash windows on the first floor replace the original windows, with one window blocked by inserted studs. A corner post to the dragon beam is deeply chamfered with a carved capital. There are two first-floor 20th-century casement windows with lattice lights, and two ground-floor three-light huny sash windows flanking a 19th-century six-panelled door within a wooden frame.

Inside, the four bays to the east originally formed one room. Exposed floor frames feature ogee-moulded beams and joists. Two doorways of unequal width, with spandrels forming four-centred arches, lead to an inner room of the west bay. A blocked first-floor entrance to the north gives access to an external stair. A blocked ground-floor entrance in the east elevation of the north range leads to what were possibly service rooms, and 20th-century door heads have been inserted in a first-floor partition. The building contains late 17th-century fireplaces with segmental brick arches. The roof is a side purlin roof with curved windbraces in each bay.

The building’s history includes a bequest in 1507 from Nicholas Wickham, the parish priest, towards building a new guildhall, which was nearly complete in 1523. Following the suppression of the guilds in 1547, the building was used as the Town House, and in 1697 it became a private house.